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EVERY-DAY   TOPICS 


DR.  J.  G.  HOLLAND'S  WRITINGS. 


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EVERY- DAY   TOPICS 


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J.    G.     HOLLAND 


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PREFACE 


T)OOKS  of  sketches,  or  of  brief  discussions 
^  of  popular  subjects,  which  can  be  taken 
up  and  read  separately  and  completely  during 
brief  periods  of  leisure,  have  always  foinid  buyers 
and  readers,  and  I  suppose  that  the  volume  of 
"  Every-Day  Topics,"  made  up  from  the  editorials 
in  Scrihners  Monthly,  which  was  issued  a  few 
years  ago,  owed  much  of  its  popularity  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  what  its  title-page  called  it,  "  A 
Book  of  Briefs,"  in  which  the  reader  could  com- 
pass a  single  article  at  a  short  sitting.  Its  suc- 
cess has  emboldened  me  to  cull  from  the  editorials 
of  the  last  five  years  another  volume,  prepared 
upon  the  same  plan,  which  I  trust  will  be  equally 
acceptable  to  the  public. 

THE    AUTHOR. 

HoNNiK  Casti.k,  A\i<;iist  i,  1881. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/everydaytopicsOOIiolliala 


CONTENTS 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHURCH. 


Religion  in  thksk  Days,     . 
A  Lay  Sf.kmon  fok  Easter, 
CiiiXKS  AND  Balances, 
A  New  Departure, 
Revivals  and  Evangelists, 
The  Changes  in  Preaching, 
Culture  and  Christianity, 
Church  Music, 
Some  Thin  Virtues, 
Is  Life  Worth  Living? 

The  Sermon 

Mr.   Huxley's  Visit, 
Falling  from  High  Places, 
The  Bondage  of  the  Puli'it, 
Sunday  Bummers,  . 
"The  Machine"  in  New  I'.ngl 
The  Talk  aisout  Retriuution, 


PAGE 
I 

5 

9 

13 
16 

19 
23 

26 

30 

34 
37 
•II 

45 
48 

52 
55 
59 


Vlll 


Contents. 


ART, 

PAGE 

American  Art, 63 

Art  Criticism 67 

Greatness  in  Art, 70 

Pettiness  in  Art, 74 

Art  as  a  Steady  Diet 77 

LITERATURE. 

The  Legitimate  Novel, 81 

Dandyism 84 

The  Prices  of  Books, 88 

The  Literary  Class, 91 

The  Interest  of  Fiction 94 

Books  and  Reading 98 

Literary  Vikh.ity loi 

Fiction, 105 

Goodness  as  Literary  Material 109 

A  Word  about  Newspapers 113 

Vulgarity  in  Fiction  and  on  the  Stage,   .       .        .  116 

Literary  Materials  and  Tools, 120 

Our  Garnered  Names, 123 

Is  IT  Poetry? 126 

CERTAIN  VIRTUES   AND   VIRTUOUS   HABITS. 


Character,  and  what  Comes  of  It, 

Pr.KsoNAL  Economies,   . 

Amkkic;.\\  Honesty, 

Keeping  at  It, 

Suspected  Dl.  tiks, 

The  Pkudeniial  I^lemiont 


OF  It, 

•  135 

.  138 

. 

.  142 

. 

•  145 

. 

.  148 

.  152 

Contents. 


IX 


EDUCATION   AND    INDUSTRY. 

PAGE 

The  Ornamental  Branches 156 

Fitting  for  College 160 

College  Instruction 163 

Teachers  anu  Task-Masters, ^67 

College  Trustees  and  Professors 170 

An  Aspect  of  the  Labor  Question 174 

Great  Shopkeepers 178 

Industrial  Education, 183 

Industrial  Education  Again 186 

TOWN   AND    COUNTRY. 

Life  in  Large  and  Small  Towns, 150 

Village  Improvement  Societies 193 

Village  Reform, 196 

Thin  Living  and  Thick  Dying 198 

From  Country  to  City 202 

ABOUT   WOMAN. 

Woman  and  Her  Work 207 

Men  and  Women, 211 

Woman's  Winter  Amusements 215 


THE    CURSE   OF    PAUPERISM. 

The  Pauper  Poison, 
The  Disease  of  Mendicancy, 
The  Public  Charities, 
Onck  More  the  Tkamp, 
Pauperizing  the  Clergy,   . 
The  Dbad-Bbat  Nuisance, 


219 
222 
226 
230 
233 
237 


Contents. 


TEMPERANCE. 


Tempekance  Education, 
Social  Drinking,  . 
The  Way  we  Waste,   . 


PACF 

.  241 

•  245 
.  247 


DOMESTIC    ECONOMY. 


Regulated  Production, 
The  Chinese  in  California, 


252 
255 


SOCIAL   FACTS,    FORCES,  AND   REFORMS. 

Acting  under  Excitement 261 

The  Cure  for  Gossif, 265 

The  Philosophy  of  Reform 2(38 

The  Reconstruction  of  National  Morality,    .        .  271 

Double  Crimes  and  One-Sided  Laws 274 

The  Better  Times, 278 

Indications  of  Progress 281 

An  Epidemic  of  Dishonesty, 285 

Familiarity, 288 

Social  Needs  and  Social  Leading,       ....  292 

Marriage  as  a  Test 295 

Popular  Despotism 299 

The  Social  Evii 303 

The  Popular  Wisdom, 307 

A  Word  on  Politics 311 

A  Hopeful  T,esson, 315 

The  Shadow  of  the  Negro 320 

The  Political  Machine 324 

Political  Training 326 

A  Reform  in  the  Civil  Service, 330 


Contents.  xi 

MATTERS  OF   DOMESTIC   CONCERN. 

I'AGR 

Houses  and  THrNCS, 335 

Good  Talking, 339 

The  Amusements  of  the  Rich 342 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Scientific  Foolishness 346 

The  Tax  for  Barbarism, 349 

The  Drama, 353 

The  Nihilists, 35^ 

Cheap  Opinions 360 

Too  Much  of  It »        .        .        .  364 

European  Travel o       ...  3^7 


EVERY-DAY  TOPICS. 


RELIGION    AND    THE    CHURCH. 

Religion  in  these  Days. 

MAN'S  place  in  nature  has  never  been  so  sharply  and 
profoundly  questioned  as  it  has  been  during  the 
past  ten  years.  The  answer  which  science  presumes 
to  give,  when  it  presumes  to  give  any,  is  not  one  which 
pleases  or  in  any  way  satisfies  itself.  "Dust  thou  art, 
and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return."  Matter  and  force 
have  manifested  themselves  in  man,  in  form  and  phe- 
nomena, and  the  matter  and  force  which  have  made 
man  shall  at  last  all  be  refunded  into  the  common  stock, 
to  be  used  over  and  over  and  over  again,  in  other  forms 
and  phenomena.  There  is  a  body,  but  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  mind  independent  of  body.  The  dualism  of 
constitution  in  which  we  have  believed,  and  which  lies 
at  the  basis  of  all  our  religion  and  philosophy,  is  a  dehi- 
sion.  Out  of  all  the  enormous  expenditure  of  ingenuity, 
or  of  what  appears  to  be  or  seems  like  ingenuity,  nolli- 
ing  is  saved.  The  great  field  of  star-mist  out  of  which 
our  solar  system  was  made  has  been  liardened  into 
planets,  set  in  motion  and  filled  with  life,  to  go  on  for 
I 


2  Every -Day    Topics. 

untold  ages,  and  then  to  come  to  an  end — possibly  to 
become  a  field  of  star-mist  again  ;  and  nothing  is  to  be 
saved  out  of  the  common  fund  of  matter  and  force  that 
can  go  on  in  an  independent,  immortal  life.  Man  is 
simply  a  higher  form  of  animal.  God  as  a  personality 
does  not  exist.  Immortality  is  a  dream,  and  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  of  course,  is  a  delusion. 

These  conclusions  seem  to  be  the  best  that  science 
can  give  us.  Science  believes  nothing  that  it  cannot 
prove.  There  may  be  a  personal  God,  who  takes  cog- 
nizance of  the  personal  affairs  of  men,  but  science  can- 
not prove  it  ;  therefore,  a  belief  in  a  personal  God  is 
"  unscientific."  There  may  be  such  a  thing  as  the  hu- 
man soul — a  spirit  that  has  a  life,  or  the  possibilities  of 
a  life,  independent  of  the  body  ;  but  it  cannot  be  proved. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  be  proved  that  all  the  phenomena 
of  what  we  call  mind  are  attributable  to  changes  that 
take  place  among  the  molecules  of  the  brain.  There- 
fore, a  belief  in  the  human  soul  is  unscientific.  Of 
course,  if  there  is  no  human  soul,  there  is  nothing  to 
save  ;  and  if  there  be  nothing  to  save,  Christ  was,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  an  impostor,  and  the  hopes 
and  expectations  of  all  Christendom  are  vain.  And  this 
is  the  highest  conclusion  to  which  science  seems  to  be 
able  to  lead  us.  Can  anything  be  imagined  to  be  more 
lame  and  impotent  ?  We  should  think  that  every  labora- 
tory and  every  scientific  school,  and  every  library  and 
study  of  a  man  of  science,  would  seem  like  a  tomb  ! 

That  this  attitude  of  prominent  men  of  science  toward 
the  great  questions  that  relate  to  God,  immortality,  the 
nature  of  the  human  soul  and  the  Christian  religion,  has 
sadly  shaken  the  faith  of  a  great  multitude,  there  is  no 
doubt.  Society  is  honeycombed  with  infidelity.  Men 
stagger  in  their  pulpits  with  their  burden  of  difficulties 
and  doubts.     The  thcolotrical  seminaries  have  become 


Religion  and  tJie  Church.  3 

shaky  places,  and  faith  has  taken  its  flight  from  an  un- 
counted number  of  souls,  leaving  them  in  a  darkness 
and  sadness  that  no  words  can  describe.  All  this  is 
true.  It  is  so  true  that  tears  may  well  mingle  in  one's 
ink  as  he  writes  it ;  but,  after  all,  we  have  everything 
left  that  we  have  ever  possessed.  Nothing  is  proved 
against  our  faith.  Science  has  never  proved  that  there  is 
no  personal  God,  no  soul,  no  immortality,  no  Christ,  and 
these  are  matters  that  we  have  always  taken  on  faith.  Not 
only  this,  but  there  are  matters  which  science  is  utterly 
incompetent  to  handle.  They  are  outside  of  the  domain 
of  science.  Science  can  no  more  touch  them  than  it  can 
touch  anything  that  it  confesses  to  be  "  unknowable." 

Now,  there  are  several  important  things  that  are  to 
be  got  out  of  the  way  before  thoughtful  Christendom 
can  be  induced  to  give  up  its  faith  in  a  personal  God. 
First,  there  is  the  moral  nature  of  man,  which  infaUibly 
recognizes  a  personal  God.  A  sensitive  moral  nature 
and  a  quickened  conscience,  whose  outcome  is  a  sense 
of  moral  responsibility,  would  be  lost  in  the  marvel 
of  their  own  existence  without  the  certainty  of  the  per- 
sonal God  to  whom  they  owe  allegiance.  They  would 
have  no  meaning,  no  authority,  no  object,  without  this 
certainty.  There  is  also  the  religious  nature  of  man. 
Reverence  for  God,  love  to  God,  devotion  to  God — all 
these,  actually  or  potentially,  exist  in  man's  nature. 
They  underlie  character  ;  they  are  potent  among  mo- 
tives ;  and  if  there  be  no  personal  God  wlio  exists  as 
their  legitimate  object,  what,  in  the  economy  of  nature, 
do  they  mean  ?  There  is  a  question  for  science  to 
answer  that  is  quite  worth  its  while.  Why  !  a  man  can- 
not admit  the  evidence  of  design  in  creation  without  ad- 
mitting the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  and  when  men 
get  so  far  bankrupt  in  common  sense  as  to  deny  the  ex- 
istence of  design,  are  they  worth  minding? 


4  Every -Day    Topics. 

When  we  admit  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  the 
rest  all  comes.  This  doctrine  lies  at  the  basis  of  all 
faith.  If  there  is  a  great,  conscious,  spiritual  person- 
ality in  existence,  ther'"  are  likely  to  be  smaller  spirit- 
ual personalities.  If  there  is  a  personal  God  who  has 
begotten  a  family  of  children  capable  of  recognizing  and 
loving  him,  is  it  probable  that  he  has  destined  them  to 
annihilation  ?  Is  he  to  get  nothing  out  of  this  great  ex- 
periment— to  carry  nothing  over  into  a  higher  life  ? 
What  are  the  probabilities  ?  And  why  has  he  planted 
this  desire  for  immortality  in  all  nations  and  races  of 
men — not  only  the  desire,  but  the  expectation  ?  The 
truth  is  that  every  unsophisticated  man,  looking  into 
himself,  knows,  with  the  highest  degree  of  moral  cer- 
tainty, that  he  is  a  living  soul,  and  that  the  mind  acts 
upon  the  brain  as  often  and  as  powerfully  as  the  brain 
upon  the  mind.  How  often  has  the  brain  been  para- 
lyzed and  the  body  been  killed  by  a  purely  mental  im- 
pression !  Common  sense,  that  recognizes  all  the  facts 
of  being  and  consciousness,  is  a  great  deal  better  than 
science,  that  only  recognizes  what  it  can  prove. 

Admitting  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  and  the 
relations  of  man  to  him  as  they  are  shown  in  his  moral 
and  religious  nature,  a  revelation  in  some  form  becomes 
probable.  Man  naturally  yearns  for  this  recognition  and 
this  light,  and  is  supremely  happy  when  he  believes  he 
possesses  it.  A  great  number  of  people,  through  a  great 
many  centuries,  have  believed  in  this  revelation.  They 
have  hugged  it  to  their  hearts  through  days  of  toil  and 
sorrow,  and  rested  their  heads  upon  it  through  nights  of 
weariness  and  pain.  The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
has  done  too  much  for  the  world  to  be  put  aside  at  the 
behest  of  science.  If  science  is  right,  then  Christianity 
is  a  falsehood  ;  but  did  ever  falsehood  do  such  work  as 
true  Christianity  has  done  ?     Can  a  lie  transform  a  base 


Religion  and  the  Church.  5 

and  cruel  life  into  one  that  is  pure  and  brotherly  ?  Can 
a  lie  inspire  the  heroisms  and  the  sacrifices  of  self  which 
have  illustrated  the  path  and  progress  of  Christianity 
from  the  earliest  times  ?  Can  a  lie  sweeten  sorrow, 
strengthen  weakness,  make  soft  the  pillow  of  death,  and 
irradiate  the  spirit  shutting  its  eyes  upon  this  world  with 
a  joy  too  great  for  utterance  ?  This  is  what  Christianity 
has  done  in  millions  and  millions  of  instances.  It  is 
busy  in  its  beneficent  work  of  transforming  character  all 
over  the  world  to-day.  Man  of  science,  what  have  you 
to  put  in  its  place  ?  The  doctrine  of  a  world  without  a 
personal  God,  and  a  man  without  a  soul !  God  pity  the 
man  of  science  who  believes  in  nothing  but  what  he  can 
prove  by  scientific  methods  !  We  cannot  imagine  a 
sadder  or  more  unfortunate  man  in  the  world.  God 
pity  him,  we  say,  for  if  ever  a  human  being  needed  di- 
vine pity,  he  does.  An  intelligent  man,  standing  in  the 
presence  of  the  Everlasting  Father,  studying  and  en- 
deavoring to  interpret  his  works,  and  refusing  to  see  him 
because  he  cannot  bring  him  into  the  field  of  his  tele- 
scope or  into  the  range  of  a  "  scientific  method,"  is  cer- 
tainly an  object  to  be  pitied  of  angels  and  of  men.  The 
marvel  is  that  in  his  darkness  and  his  sadness  men  turn 
to  him  for  light — turn  to  a  man  for  light  who  denies  not 
only  God,  but  the  existence  of  the  human  soul !  Alas, 
that  there  should  be  fools  more  eminent  in  their  foolish- 
ness than  he ! 

A  Lay  Sermon  for  Easter. 
In  a  Christian  nation  no  "  topic  "  could  be  more  ap- 
propriate to  the  Easter  "time"  than  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead  of  the  founder  of  Christianity,  and  there 
is  a  single  aspect  of  this  event  which  it  seems  proper  for 
us  to  present.  It  is  particularly  appropriate  for  a  secu- 
lar press  to  do  this,  because  the  secular  press  has  had 


6  Every-Day    Topics. 

so  much  to  do  with  the  upsetting  of  the  faith  of  the  world 
in  this  most  significant  event — an  event  on  which  the 
authorities  of  Christianity  make  the  reUgion  of  Christ  to 
depend.  If  Christ  be  not  raised,  these  authorities  de- 
clare that  the  faith  in  him  is  vain  and  his  followers  are 
yet  in  their  sins.  It  is  a  curious  and  most  noteworthy 
thing,  after  all  the  dogmas  that  have  been  reared  upon 
the  death  and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  that  the  one  only  essen- 
tial fact  of  his  history — essential  to  the  establishment  of 
his  religion,  without  which  everything  else  would  be  of 
no  account — is  declared  to  be  his  resurrection.  It  was 
not  enough  that  he  died  ;  it  was  not  enough  that  he  suf- 
fered— all  this  was  of  no  account  whatever,  as  compared 
with  his  rising  again.  His  death  did  not  wipe  out  the 
sins  of  his  people  ;  if  he  did  not  rise,  they  were  still  un- 
forgiven. 

There  probably  never  existed  a  more  fearfully  demor- 
alized set  of  men  than  the  disciples  and  followers  of 
Jesus  Christ  on  the  night  of  his  betrayal  and  arrest. 
One  betrayed  him,  another  denied  him,  and  all  forsook 
him  and  fled.  They  had  been  with  him  during  his  won- 
der-working ;  they  had  heard  him  talk  of  his  kingdom  ; 
some  of  them  had  been  with  him  on  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
figuration ;  they  had  seen  unclean  spirits  subject  to  him  ; 
they  had  seen  life  restored  at  his  touch  and  disease 
banished  by  his  word  ;  he  had  grown  before  them  into 
a  great,  divine  personage,  armed  with  all  power  and 
clothed  with  all  grace.  They  had  forsaken  homes  and 
friends  and  pursuits  to  follow  him,  with  great,  indefinite 
hopes  and  anticipations  that  it  was  he  who  should  re- 
deem Israel,  but  without  any  intelligent  estimate  of  his 
mission  ;  and  when  they  saw  him  in  the  hands  of  his 
enemies,  and  apparently  helpless,  a  great  panic  seized 
them,  and  tlioy  literally  gave  him  up,  witli  all  the 
schemes  engendered  by  their  intercourse  with  him. 


Religion  and  the   Church.  7 

This,  however,  was  but  the  beginning  of  the  tragedy. 
Calvary  with  its  cross  stood  directly  before  them,  and 
the  infamy  and  cruelty  of  his  death  were  consummated 
there  amid  such  convulsions  of  nature  as  might  well  sig- 
nalize one  of  the  most  shameful  events  in  the  history  of 
human  injustice  and  crime.  The  great  religious  teacher 
and  inspirer  had  died  the  death  of  a  malefactor,  hanging 
between  two  thieves.  He  had  manifested  none  of  the 
power  which  he  claimed,  though  taunted  by  the  mob  and 
called  upon  to  save  himself  if  he  indeed  were  the  per- 
son he  claimed  to  be.  After  he  was  found  to  be  dead, 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  took  down  his  lifeless  body  and 
buried  it.  A  stone  was  rolled  to  the  door  of  the  sepul- 
chre and  sealed,  and  the  disciples  were  in  hiding.  They 
were  undoubtedly  in  deep  sorrow,  for  they  had  loved  the 
Master  and  had  built  great  hopes  upon  him.  But,  during 
those  three  days  after  his  burial,  the  Christian  religion 
was  as  dead  as  the  person  who  had  undertaken  to  found 
it.  Every  hope  of  his  followers  were  buried  in  that 
sepulchre,  and  not  one  of  all  their  hopes  would  ever  have 
revived  had  he  not  come  out  of  it.  And  this  is  the 
thought  that  we  wish  to  present  to-day,  viz.:  that  the 
fact  that  Christianity,  as  a  living  and  aggressive  religion, 
exists  at  this  moment,  is  proof  positive  that  Christ  rose 
from  the  dead.  It  never  would  have  started,  it  never 
could  have  started,  except  in  the  fact  of  Christ's  resur- 
rection. The  story  of  his  disappearance  from  the  tomb 
and  his  reappearance  among  his  disciples  is  familiar  to 
all.  These  events  have  formed  the  themes  of  painter 
and  poet  through  eighteen  hundred  years  of  art  and 
song.  The  story  was  as  incredible  to  the  disciples  as 
it  is  to  the  scepticism  of  to-day  ;  but  they  saw  him,  they 
heard  him  talk,  he  came  and  went  among  them,  ap- 
peared and  disappeared  at  will,  gave  them  his  message 
and  their  mission,  and  was  at  last  received  up  out  of 


8  Every -Day    Topics. 

sight,  having  promised  to  be  with  them  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world.  Paul,  in  writing  to  the  Corinthians, 
says  he  was  seen  by  Cephas,  then  by  the  twelve,  after 
that  by  above  five  hundred  brethren  at  once,  most  of 
whom  were  living  at  the  time  he  was  writing  his  letter. 
After  that  he  was  seen  by  James,  then  by  all  the  apos- 
tles again,  and  at  last  by  Paul  himself.  It  was  because 
it  was  supported  by  all  this  throng  of  witnesses,  whose 
word  could  not  be  gainsaid,  that  the  Christian  religion 
established  itself.  Not  only  was  Christ  indorsed  as  a 
divine  and  authoritative  personage,  but  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  was  demonstrated.  What  wonder  is  it  that 
these  men  were  ready  to  die  in  their  devotion  to  the 
Master,  whom  they  had  seen  conquering  death,  and 
whom  they  had  known  as  an  immortal  leader  ? 

So  we  say  that  there  is  no  better  evidence  that 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead  than  the  present  existence  of 
his  church  in  the  world.  It  never  could  have  been 
founded  with  Christ  in  the  tomb.  It  never  could  have 
been  founded  on  imperfect  testimony.  These  men  knew 
what  they  had  seen,  what  their  hands  had  handled,  and 
what  they  were  talking  about.  It  really  was  not  a  mat- 
ter of  faith  with  them  at  all  ;  it  was  a  matter  of  fact, 
lying  indestructibly  in  their  memories,  and  vitalizing 
all  their  lives.  In  the  tremendous  enthusiasm  born  of 
this  burning  memory,  Christianity  had  its  birth.  In 
the  faith  of  this  great  initial  and  essential  fact,  Chris- 
tianity has  been  propagated.  It  is  the  only  open  demon- 
stration of  the  problem  of  immortality  ever  vouchsafed 
to  the  human  race,  and  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
Gospel  which  Christ  commanded  should  be  preached  to 
every  creature,  with  lips  already  clothed  with  the  author- 
ity and  with  voice  already  attuned  to  the  harmonies  of  the 
immortal  life.  The  facts  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
and  the  immortality  of  the  soul  find  their  highest — nay, 


Religion  and  the  Church.  9 

their  overwhelmingly  convincing  testimony,  in  the  birth 
and  continued  existence  of  the  Christian  religion.  There 
is  no  man  living  who  can  form  a  rational  theory  of  the 
genesis  and  development  of  Christianity  who  does  not 
embrace  the  resurrection  as  an  initial  and  essential  fac- 
tor. A  living  religion  never  could  have  been  founded  on 
a  dead  Christ,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  religion  that 
rests  upon  a  living  Christ  can  never  be  superseded  or 
destroyed. 

Checks  and  Balances. 
In  a  certain  Roman  Catholic  church  near  us  there  is 
now  in  progress,  while  we  write,  a  "  mission,"  carried 
on  by  a  body  of  men  called  "  The  Passionist  Fathers.'' 
They  are  at  work  at  unheard-of  hours  in  the  morning,  as 
well  as  during  the  day  and  evening,  and  the  attendance 
and  attention  are  something  phenomenal.  The  excite- 
ment is  the  natural  result  of  a  long  period  of  formal 
worship.  The  church  had  to  be  waked  up,  and  that  is 
done  in  a  week  which  ojght  to  have  been  spread  over  a 
year^which,  if  it  had  been  spread  over  a  year,  would 
have  made  the  excitement  not  only  unnecessary,  but  im- 
possible. Such  an  event  shows  that  very  necessary  work 
has  been  neglected.  The  same  thing,  calling  for  the 
same  remedies,  exists  in  the  Protestant  Church.  The 
revival  is  only  rendered  necessary  and  possible  by  a  pe- 
riod of  spiritual  declension  and  death.  When  a  great 
revival  comes  to  a  church,  it  comes  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  a  great  falling  away  of  religious  interest  and 
a  long  period  of  spiritual  inactivity.  When  a  church 
docs  every  day,  and  all  the  time,  what  it  ouj^at  to  do.  a 
revival  is  impossiljle.  Human  nature  dcmancis  a  balance 
in  everything,  and  the  revival  comes  to  till  the  comple- 
ment of  activity  necessary  to  preserve  the  aggressi\c  lile 
of  a  church. 
I* 


10  Every-Day   Topics. 

Just  now  we  are  having  in  New  York  a  great  temper* 
ance  revival.  Under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Murphy,  the  pledge 
of  total  abstinence  is  signed  by  thousands.  There  is  a 
legal  war,  too,  upon  the  rum-sellers.  All  this  excited 
and  radical  action  comes  just  as  naturally  from  a  bad 
state  of  things,  political,  moral,  and  social,  as  the  fall  of 
rain  from  an  overcharged  cloud.  If  none  had  sold 
liquor  save  those  who  had  a  legal  right  to  sell,  and  none 
had  become  so  intemperate  in  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks 
that  the  practice  had  grown  to  be  the  great  overshadow- 
ing curse  of  the  city,  breeding  pauperism,  misery,  and 
crime,  Mr.  Murphy  would  have  nothing  to  do,  and  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Crime  would  never  have 
been  formed.  One  extreme  breeds  another.  The 
drunkard  calls  into  existence  the  rigid  adherent  of 
"  teetotalism."  The  unlicensed  rum-seller  produces 
the  society  that  puts  him  on  his  defence.  It  is  the  gross 
abuse  of  liquor  that  produces  the  extremist  in  temper- 
ance practices  and  temperance  legislation.  If  there 
were  universal  temperance  there  would  be  no  total  ab- 
stinence. Extreme  temperance  men  are  produced  only 
by  extreme  intemperance  in  others.  It  is  for  the  safety 
of  society  that  this  law  exists,  for  by  it  the  balance  of 
forces  is  preserved  and  society  restrained  from  hopeless 
degradation. 

The  inauguration  of  our  late  civil  war  illustrated  the 
operation  of  this  law  in  a  very  notable  way.  When  the 
South  became  "solid"  in  its  attempt  to  destroy  the 
Union,  the  North  became  "  solid  "  in  its  defence.  The 
first  gun  fired  upon  the  national  flag  was  the  signal  for 
Northern  consolidation.  It  could  not  have  been  other- 
wise, in  the  nature  of  things.  If  a  sectional  reason  had 
arisen  for  the  destruction  of  the  Government,  a  sectional 
reason  would  instantly  have  sprung  into  being  for  its  pre- 
servation, which  would  wipe  out,  or  hold  in  abeyance, 


Religion  and  the  Church.  i  i 

all  party  affiliations.  The  solid  South  produced  the  solid 
North,  and  what  it  did  then  it  will  always  do.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  use  in  quarrelling  with  the  fact,  for  men 
are  not  responsible  for  it.  It  simply  cannot  be  helped  ; 
and  if  the  South  ever  hopes  to  be  the  power  in  national 
politics  that  she  was  in  the  old  days,  every  man  within 
her  borders  must  be  free,  and  the  attempt  to  force  her 
constituents  into  solidity  must  be  abandoned  as  most 
unwise,  and,  sectionally,  suicidal.  It  will  always  be 
enough  that  the  South  is  solid  under  political  pressure, 
to  make  it  impossible  for  its  friends  to  assist  it  in  its 
policy,  whatever  it  may  be. 

The  whole  Christian  world  has  become  incrusted  with 
dogma  and  formalism.  Great  importance  is  attached  to 
beliefs  and  creeds,  and  the  essentials  of  Christianity, 
including  its  vital  centre,  are  almost  forgotten.  The 
church  is  overloaded  with  superstition  and  nonsensical 
beliefs  and  sacred  falsehoods.  What  is  the  cure  for  all 
this?  The  law  of  checks  and  balances  has  its  office 
here,  and  it  has  begun  its  operation  through  the  scepti- 
cism of  the  scientists.  The  criticism  of  science  was 
sure  to  come,  as  the  necessary  agent  in  purifying  the 
church  of  superstition  and  falsehood.  Popery  produced 
Luther,  and  the  peculiar  form  in  which  Christianity  has 
presented  itself  to  this  latter  age  has  produced  the  form 
of  infidelity  now  propagated  by  the  scientists.  When 
science  shall  do  its  perfect  work,  and  Christianity  shall 
be  shorn  of  that  which  does  not  belong  to  it,  and  of  that 
which  has  brought  it  into  contempt  with  a  world  of 
bright  men  and  women,  then  we  shall  have  such  a 
triumph  for  our  religion  as  the  world  has  never  known. 
And  here  we  call  the  Church  to  witness  that  science  has 
thus  far  taught  it  nothing,  in  the  uprooting  an  old  belief, 
that  has  not  enlarged  its  ideas  of  God  and  humanity. 

Men  are  very  apt  to  despair  of  the  world,  especiall) 


12  Every- Day    Topics. 

those  who  have  labored  long  for  its  good.  Our  excellent 
friends  who  met  last  autumn  at  Dr.  Tyng's  church,  to 
talk  about  the  coming  of  Christ,  were,  many  of  them, 
those  who  were  discouraged  with  their  work,  and  who 
had  come  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  methods  of 
saving  men  to  which  they  had  been  bred  were  inade- 
quate to  the  undertaking.  Did  it  ever  occur  to  them 
that  their  methods  may  be  wrong,  and  that  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  future  they  are  to  be  set  right  ?  Let 
them  not  be  found  fighting  their  Master  in  the  persons 
of  those  who  have  been  sent  to  show  them  the  nature  of 
the  stuff  they  are  believing  and  preaching.  Christianity, 
purified  of  its  dross,  will  be  a  very  different  thing  from 
Christianity  loaded  down  with  sanctified  absurdities. 

The  truth  is  that  this  law  of  checks  and  balances 
makes  the  world  safe.  All  wrong  tendencies  and  influ- 
ences bring  into  existence  right  tendencies  and  influ- 
ences, and  God  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  latter.  If 
an  institution  is  worth  saving,  and  has  genuine  vitality, 
no  influence  can  be  brought  against  it  that  will  not 
arouse  a  counteracting  power.  The  attacks  of  the  sci- 
entists upon  the  Church  have  aroused  such  a  spirit  of 
devotion  and  inquiry  that  great  good  has  already  resulted 
from  them  to  the  church  itself,  and,  as  men  must  have 
religion,  those  who  are  outside  of  the  Church  are  trying  to 
get  at  the  essential  truth  for  themselves.  Just  as  soon 
as  the  Chi-istian  world  gets  over  the  flurry  of  the  onset, 
and  discovers  that  the  office  of  science  and  scientific 
criticism  is  to  set  it  right  as  to  such  facts,  and  such 
only,  as  come  within  its  range,  and  that  its  only  lasting 
effect  will  be  to  rectify  and  purify  its  beliefs,  it  will 
make  a  marvellous  advance  ;  and  that  time  we  believe  to 
be  not  far  off.  The  cause  of  Christianity,  of  humanity, 
of  temperance,  of  progress  toward  high  social  ideals,  is 
safe  in  the  operation  of  this  beneficent  law.     There  is 


Religion  and  the  CliurcJi.  13 

nothing  that  tells  against  that  which  is  good  in  the  world 
which  has  not  in  it  the  seeds  and  the  soil  of  a  counter- 
acting and  controlling  power. 

A  New  Departure. 

One  of  the  great  problems,  apparently  insoluble,  that 
has  vexed  the  pastors  and  churches  of  the  great  cities, 
more  particularly  during  the  last  ten  years,  relates  to  the 
means  by  which  they  shall  get  hold  of  the  great  outlying 
world  of  the  poor.  So  difficult  has  this  question  become, 
that  pastors  and  churches  alike  have  been  in  despair 
over  it.  The  poor  have  not  come  into  the  churches  of 
the  rich,  and  few  of  them,  comparatively,  have  had  the 
Gospel  preached  to  them.  The  results  of  mission- 
schools  and  missions  have  been  unsatisfactory.  The 
efforts  made  have  not  built  up  self-supporting  institu- 
tions ;  those  who  were  benefited  have  been  quite  content 
to  remain  beneficiaries,  and  the  most  strenuous  efiorts 
have  been  constantly  necessary  to  keep  schools  and 
congregations  together.  In  the  meantime,  the  work- 
ing churches  have  been  comparatively  small,  and  at- 
tended only  by  the  higher  classes.  All  has  gone  wrong. 
The  high  and  the  huml^le,  who,  if  anywhere  in  the  world, 
should  come  together  in  the  churches,  have  kept  them- 
selves separate,  and  the  work  of  Christianization  has 
been  carried  on  slowly,  and  at  a  tremendous  and  most 
discouraging  disadvantage. 

One  of  the  leading  reasons  for  the  unanimous  feeling 
of  friendly  interest  in  the  late  efforts  of  Messrs.  }vIoody 
and  Sankey  on  the  part  of  the  ministers  of  all  denomina- 
tions rested  in  this  difriculty.  These  men  drew  the  poor 
to  them  in  great  numbers,  and  not  only  attracted,  br.t 
helped  them  and  held  them.  To  learn  how  it  was  done, 
ministers  from  all  quarters  assemljled  in  cun\ention, 
and  the  professional  teachers  became  eager  learners  at 


!4  Every -Day   Topics. 

the  feet  of  the  two  successful  laymen.  The  first  result  of 
this  convention  will  undoubtedly  be  a  modification  of  pul- 
pit-work— a  modification  so  marked  that  it  will  amount 
to  a  revolution.  The  old-fashioned,  highly  intellectual  and 
largely  theological  sermon  will  go  out,  and  the  simple 
preaching  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
and  the  hortatory  appeal,  will  come  in.  The  ministers, 
however,  have  all  been  tending  toward  this  for  some 
years.  The  results  of  public  discussion  have  been  in 
this  direction,  so  that  the  modification  in  preaching  will 
not  be  a  violent  one,  save  in  special  instances.  Still,  the 
change  may  legitimately  be  noted  as  a  new  departure, 
and  one  on  which  the  highest  hopes  may  be  built. 

But  the  most  important  part  of  the  problem  is  un- 
doubtedly to  be  solved  in  another  way.  For  some  years 
it  has  been  seen  that  the  great  non-church-going  public 
has  been  quite  ready  to  hear  preaching,  provided  they 
could  hear  it  in  some  other  building  than  the  church. 
Wherever  the  theatre,  the  opera-house,  or  the  hall  has 
been  opened,  it  has  been  uniformly  filled,  and  often  to 
overflowing.  In  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Brooklyn,  Chi- 
cago, and  New  York,  the  poor  have  pressed  into  tlie 
theatres  and  public  halls  whenever  there  was  preach- 
ing to  be  heard  that  promised  to  be  worth  the  hearing. 
We  are  not  going  to  stop  to  discuss  the  reason  of  this. 
We  simply  allude  to  it  as  a  most  significant  fact  in  con- 
nection with  the  policy  of  the  future.  The  distance  be- 
tween the  poor,  uneducated  men,  and  the  rich  and  cul- 
tured church,  is  proved  to  be  too  great  to  be  spanned  by 
a  single  leap. 

The  non-professional  teacher  and  the  public  hall  are 
to  furnish  the  stepping-stones  by  which  the  poor  are  to 
reach  the  Church.  When  a  man  from  the  poorer  walks 
of  life — from  the  ranks  of  the  laborer — stands  in  a  public 
hall  where  all  can  come  together  on  common  ground, 


Religion  ami  the   Church.  1 5 

and  talks  to  the  people  in  his  simple,  straightforward 
way,  upon  subjects  connected  with  their  highest  inter- 
ests, he  furnishes  all  the  means,  and  is  surrounded  by  all 
the  conditions,  necessary  to  success  in  his  endeavors, 
lie  can  do  what  no  professional  man  can  do  in  any  build- 
ing devoted  to  religious  purposes.  We  make  this  state- 
ment, not  as  a  matter  of  theory,  but  as  a  matter  of  well- 
established  fact.  The  preachers  know  it ;  the  people 
know  it.  It  is  a  thing  that  has  been  marvellously  demon- 
strated, and  if  the  Christian  world  is  not  ready  to  accept 
this  demonstration,  with  all  its  practical  indications,  it 
will  show  itself  to  be  criminally  blind. 

Any  new  departure  in  the  methods  of  Christian  work 
will,  therefore,  be  very  incomplete — nugatory,  in  fact — 
which  does  not  recognize  lay  preaching  in  public  halls  as 
an  important  part  of  its  policy.  We  have  seen  just  how 
the  poor  are  to  be  reached  and  lifted  into  the  churches, 
because  we  have  seen  just  how  they  have  been  reached 
and  lifted  into  the  churches.  During  the  efforts  of  Mr. 
Moody  in  London,  Brooklyn,  Philadelphia,  and  New 
York,  thousands  whom  no  pulpit  could  ever  influence 
have  found  their  way  through  his  audience-rooms  into 
the  Church.  He  has  officiated  as  a  mediator  between 
the  world  and  the  church,  and  has  been  a  thousand  times 
wiser  than  he  knew,  or  the  Church  suspected.  He  has 
solved  the  one  grand  problem  that  has  puzzled  the 
Church  and  its  ministry  for  years,  and  they  will  be 
short-sighted  and  stingy,  indeed,  if  they  fail  to  make  his 
work  the  basis  of  a  permanent  policy. 

In  every  considerable  city  of  the  United  States  all 
Christian  sects  should  unite  in  the  establishment  of  halls 
for  the  work  of  evangelists — of  men  who  have  a  special 
gift  for  preaching  the  simple  Gospel.  The  example  of 
such  a  man  as  Mr.  Moody  cannot  but  be  fruitful  in  call- 
ing out  from  the  ranks  of  Christian  laymen  a  little  army 


1 6  Every -Day    Topics. 

of  talented  and  devoted  workers,  who  will  enter  into  his 
methods  and  swell  the  results  of  his  work.  All  evangel- 
ists whose  work  is  worth  the  having  should  labor  in  this 
field.  No  man  should  be  in  it  who  cares  more  for  build- 
ing up  one  church  than  another,  for  one  of  the  prime 
conditions  of  his  success  is,  that  he  shall  not  be  regarded 
as  the  mouthpiece  of  any  Christian  sect  or  party.  The 
essential  thing  is,  that  he  shall  be  a  Christian,  moved 
by  the  love  of  God  and  man,  and  desirous  only  of  bring- 
ing men  to  God.  If  the  Church  does  not  see  a  new  light 
upon  its  path,  poured  upon  it  by  the  events  to  which  we 
have  alluded,  it  must  be  blind  indeed.  But  it  does  see 
the  new  light,  and  we  believe  that  its  leaders  and  teach- 
ers are  ready  to  walk  in  it. 

Revivals  and  Evangelists. 

Revivals  seem  to  have  become  a  part  of  the  estab- 
lished policy  of  nearly  the  whole  Christian  Church.  The 
Catholics  have  their  "  Missions,"  the  Episcopalians  have 
their  regular  special  seasons  of  religious  devotion  and 
effort,  while  the  other  forms  of  Prostcstantism  look  to 
revivals,  occasionally  appearing,  as  the  times  of  general 
awakening  and  general  in-gathering.  Regular  church 
life,  family  culture,  Sunday  schools  and  even  regular 
Mission  work  seem  quite  insufficient  for  aggressive  pur- 
poses upon  the  world.  We  do  not  propose  to  question 
this  policy,  though  the  time  will  doubtless  come,  in  the 
progress  of  Christianity,  when  it  will  be  forgotten.  We 
have  only  to  say  a  word  in  regard  to  the  association  of 
evangelists  with  revivals,  and  the  two  principal  modes 
of  their  operation.  With  one  we  have  very  little  sympa- 
thy, with  the  other  a  great  deal. 

There  is  a  class  of  evangelists  who  go  from  church  to 
church,  of  whom  most  clergymen  are  afraid  ;  and  their 
fears  arc  thoroughly  well  grounded.     There  arises,  we 


Religion  and  the  Church.  ly 

vill  say,  a  strong  religious  interest  in  a  church.  Every- 
thing seems  favorable  to  what  is  called  "  a  revival." 
Some  well-meaning  member  thinks  that  if  Mr.  Bedlow 
could  only  come  and  help  the  fatigued  pastor,  wonder- 
ful results  would  follow.  The  pastor  does  not  wish  to 
stand  in  the  way — is  suspicious  that  he  has  unworthy 
prejudices  against  Mr.  Bedlow — tries  to  overcome  them, 
and  Mr.  Bedlow  appears.  But  Mr.  Bedlow  utterly  ig- 
nores the  condition  of  the  church,  and,  instead  of  sensi- 
tively apprehending  it  and  adapting  himself  to  the  line 
of  influences  already  in  progress,  arrests  everything  by 
an  attempt  to  start  anew,  and  carry  on  operations  by  his 
own  patent  method.  The  first  movement  is  to  get  the 
pastor  and  the  pastor's  wife  and  all  the  prominent  mem- 
bers upon  their  knees,  in  a  confession  that  they  have 
been  all  wrong — miserably  unfaithful  to  their  duties  and 
their  trust.  This  is  the  first  step,  and  of  course,  it  es- 
tablishes Mr.  Bedlow  in  the  supreme  position,  which  is 
precisely  what  he  deems  essential.  The  methods  and 
controlling  influences  of  the  church  are  uprooted,  and, 
for  the  time,  Mr.  Bedlow  has  everything  his  own  way. 
Some  are  disgusted,  some  are  disheartened,  a  great 
many  are  excited,  and  the  good  results,  whatever  they 
may  seem  to  be,  are  ephemeral.  There  inevitably  fol- 
lows a  reaction,  and  in  a  year  the  church  acknowledges 
to  itself  that  it  is  left  in  a  worse  condition  than  that  in 
which  Mr.  Bedlow  found  it.  The  minister  has  been 
shaken  from  his  poise,  the  church  is  dead,  and  whatever 
happens,  Mr.  Bedlow,  still  going  through  his  process 
elsewhere,  will  not  be  invited  there  again. 

We  will  deny  nothing  to  the  motives  of  these  itiner- 
ants. They  seem  to  thrive  personally  and  financially. 
They  undoubtedly  do  good  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances, but,  that  they  are  dangerous  men  we  do  not 
question.       If   neighboring    clergymen,    in    a   brotherly 


1 8  Every- Day    Topics. 

way,  were  to  come  to  the  help  of  one  seriously  over- 
worked, and  enter  into  his  spirit  and  his  method  of 
labor,  it  would  be  a  great  deal  better  than  to  bring  in  a 
foreign  power  that  will  work  by  its  own  methods  or  not 
work  at  all, — that  will  rule  or  do  nothing.  If  this  maga- 
zine, or  the  writer  of  this  article,  has  seemed  to  be 
against  revivals,  it  and  he  have  only  been  against  re- 
vivals of  this  sort,  got  up  and  carried  on  by  these  men. 
We  question  very  sincerely  whether  they  have  not  done 
more  harm  to  the  Church  than  they  have  done  good. 
That  they  have  injured  many  churches  very  seriously 
there  can  be  no  question.  The  mere  idea  that  the  com- 
ing of  Mr.  Bedlow  into  a  church  will  bring  a  revival 
which  would  be  denied  to  a  conscientious,  devoted  pas- 
tor and  people,  is  enough,  of  itself,  to  shake  the  popu- 
lar faith  in  Christianity  and  its  divine  and  gracious 
founder.  Even  if  it  fails  to  do  this,  it  may  well  shake 
the  popular  faith  in  the  character  of  the  revival  and  its 
results. 

There  is  another  class  of  evangelists  who  work  in  a 
very  different  way.  It  is  very  small  at  present,  but  it  is 
destined  to  grow  larger.  It  works,  not  inside  of  churches, 
but  outside  of  them.  It  has  a  mission,  not  to  the 
churches,  but  to  the  people  who  are  outside  of  them. 
It  works  in  public  halls  with  no  sectarian  ideas  to  push, 
no  party  to  build  up,  no  special  church  to  benefit.  It 
aims  at  a  popular  awakening,  and,  when  it  gains  a  man, 
it  sends  him  to  the  church  of  his  choice,  to  be  educated 
in  Christian  living.  To  this  class  belong  Messrs.  Moody 
and  Sankey,  whose  efforts  we  have  approved  from  the 
first,  because  they  have  done  their  work  in  this  way. 
That  it  is  a  better  work  than  the  other  class  of  evangel- 
ists have  ever  done,  we  have  the  evidence  on  every  hand. 
The  churches  are  all  quickened  by  it  to  go  on  with  their 
own  work  in  their  own  way.     There  is  no  usurpation  of 


Religion  and  the  CJnircJi.  19 

pastoral  authority  and  influence.  There  is  no  interfer- 
ence with  methods  that  have  had  a  natural  growth  and 
development  out  of  the  individualities  of  the  member- 
ship, and  out  of  the  individual  circumstances  of  each 
church. 

There  is  another  good  result  which  grows  naturally 
out  of  the  labors  of  this  class  of  men.  It  brings  all  the 
churches  together  upon  common  ground.  The  Presby- 
terian, the  Baptist,  the  Methodist,  the  Episcopalian,  sit  on 
the  same  platform,  and,  together,  learn  that,  after  all,  the 
beginning  and  the  essence  of  a  Christian  life  and  char- 
acter are  the  same  in  every  church.  They  learn  toleration 
for  one  another.  More  than  this  :  they  learn  friendliness 
and  love  for  one  another.  They  light  their  torches  at  a 
common  fire,  and  kindle  the  flame  upon  their  own  separ- 
ate altars  in  a  common  sympathy.  They  all  feel  that 
the  evangelist  has  to  do  mainly  with  the  beginnings  of 
Christian  life,  and  that  it  is  their  work  to  gather  in  and 
perfect  those  results  which  have  only  been  initiated. 
Hence,  all  have  an  interest  in  that  work  and  help  it  on 
with  united  heart  and  voice.  The  more  of  this  kind  of 
evangelism  we  have,  the  better. 

The  Changes  in  Preaching. 
That  an  important  change  is  now  in  progress  in  the 
American  pulpit,  is  evident  to  even  a  careless  observer. 
The  preachers  now  coming  upon  the  stage  are  studying 
methods  and  arts  as  they  have  never  done  within  our 
memory.  A  most  important  fact  begin,  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  ago,  to  manifest  itself  alike  to  teachers  and 
disciples,  viz.,  the  fact  that  the  great  masses  \vere  slip- 
ping more  and  more  out  of  the  reach  of  the  church,  and 
that  the  preacher  was  losing  his  power,  even  over  liis 
own  flock.  It  was  liard  for  men  trained  in  the  old  way; 
to  understand  tlic  cau:)cs  of  this  misfortune  ;   but  it  b'_ 


20  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

came  apparent  at  last  to  one,  here  and  there,  that  a 
theological  skeleton,  unclothed  with  flesh  and  blood, 
and  without  a  warm  heart  behind  its  ribs,  was  not  an 
inspiring  object.  It  became  apparent  that  the  world 
was  sick  of  theology,  and,  if  it  could  not  have  the  gos- 
pel, would  not  have  anything.  There  are  still  many 
among  the  preachers  who  suppose  that  theology  is  the 
gospel,  but  they  are  rapidly  passing  away. 

A  very  successful  preacher,  in  a  recent  conversation, 
said  that  his  theology  wao  a  sort  of  dry  codfish  which  he 
hung  up  in  his  study  by  the  tail,  and  whenever  he 
wanted  any  of  it  he  cut  out  a  chunk.  Another,  of  al- 
most equal  eminence,  said,  that  while  it  seemed  to  him 
very  important  that  a  preacher  should  be  well  grounded 
in  Christian  doctrine,  and  have  definite  and  well-settled 
opinions  on  theology,  he  should  never  think  of  taking 
theology  into  the  pulpit !  Both  these  men  are  earnest 
men,  and  remarkable  preachers,  but  they  have  made  the 
clean  jump  into  the  new  order  of  things.  Can  New 
England  ever  comprehend  this — that  a  preacher  can  be 
in  dead  earnest,  and  yet,  without  any  reservation,  say 
that  theology  is  a  thing  for  the  study  and  not  for  the  pul- 
pit? Of  course  it  is  nothing  less  than  a  revolution,  but 
toward  this  is  the  drift  of  the  day. 

It  is  a  significant  commentary  on  the  condition  of  the 
Christian  mind  of  the  country  that  this  revolution  needs 
explaining.  There  are  great  multitudes  who  have  so 
identified  theology  with  religion  that  they  cannot  con- 
ceive what  a  preacher  who  says  nothing  of  theology  can 
have  to  say,  and  what  can  be  the  object  of  his  preaching 
at  all.  Indeed,  we  have  heard  a  prominent  preacher  of 
the  old  sort  confidently  declare  that  no  preacher  can  sus- 
tain  himself,  or  find  enough  to  talk  about,  who  does  not 
preach  theology.  He  was  honest  in  his  declaration,  and 
he  will  never  be  revolutionized,  and  never  be  very  use- 


Religion  and  the  Church.  21 

ful ;  but  his  successor  will  understand  it,  and  his  peo- 
ple will  win  the  profit  of  his  intelligence.  To  explain, 
then,  what  is  involved  in  this  revolution  :  the  man  who 
preaches  theology  exclusively,  preaches  exclusively  to 
the  head  ;  and  every  man  preaches  to  the  head  in  just 
the  measure  that  he  preaches  theology.  The  man  who 
preaches  the  gospel  preaches  a  person, — preaches  a  life 
and  death  and  resurrection, — proclaims  the  good  tidings 
of  a  divine  message  and  a  divine  mission  to  men, — ad- 
dresses and  works  upon  the  higher  sentiments, — labors 
for  the  uprooting  of  selfishness  in  the  heart  and  life,  and 
the  implanting  in  them  of  love  as  the  dominant  motive, 
and  labors  for  a  transformation  of  character.  The  great 
aim  of  the  man  who  preaches  the  gospel  is  to  make  bad 
men  good,  and  good  men  better, — to  improve  the  quality 
of  character  and  life,— to  bring  man  into  that  harmony 
with  God  and  the  divine  moralities  which  will  be  secured 
through  the  following  of  the  Master.  The  old  sort  of 
preaching  is  not  unlike  the  work  of  articulating  a  skele- 
ton ;  the  new  sort  is  not  unlike  that  of  gathering  and 
weaving  a  garland  of  flowers.  There  may  be  a  certain 
amount  of  mental  discipline  in  theology,  but,  on  the 
whole,  mathematics  must  be  preferable  ;  and,  really,  if 
a  man  feels  that  he  must  go  for  the  heads  of  his  congre- 
gation every  time,  let  him  drop  his  pen,  and  with  a  piece 
of  chalk  and  a  blackboard,  talk  about  something  that  he 
understands,  and  something  that  will  be  of  practical 
value  to  his  people. 

Revivals  have  become  necessary  to  the  advance  of 
Christianity,  simply  because  of  the  incompetency  of  the 
ordinary  preaching  ;  and  the  moment  the  revivals  come, 
the  preaching  changes,  or  it  changes  before  they  come. 
.  In  the  nature  of  things,  there  ought  not  to  be  much  for  a 
revival  to  do  in  any  church  which  has  had  the  simple 
good  news  preached  to  it,  and  in  which  the  heart  and 


22  Every- Day    Topics. 

life  and  better  motives  have  been  affectionately  and  per 
sistently  addressed.  Revivals  are  nothing  but- a  make- 
shift. It  is  not  a  very  high  idea  of  the  Father  of  us  all 
that  supposes  him  any  more  willing  to  convert  men  at 
one  time  than  another.  Preachers  full  of  the  learning 
of  the  schools  go  on  from  year  to  year  with  their  dry  dis- 
courses, and  wonder  that  nothing  comes  of  them.  Then 
a  Christian  ignoramus  comes  along,  with  burning  love 
and  zeal  in  his  heart,  and  no  theology  to  speak  of  in 
his  head,  and  bad  grammar  on  his  tongue,  and  the  long 
winter  breaks  up,  and  the  waters  flow  once  more,  and 
the  meadows  blossom  again.  And  this  is  done  over  and 
over,  with  some  good  results  and  many  bad  ones. 

With  the  passing  away  of  the  theological  essay,  will 
pass  away  much  of  the  necessity  of  written  discourses  ; 
and  it  will  be  noticed  that  very  nearly  in  the  proportion 
in  which  the  character  of  preaching  has  changed,  has 
the  oral  supplanted  the  written  discourse.  We  think  it 
is  seen  now,  with  great  distinctness,  that,  in  addressing 
motives,  direct  speech  from  heart  to  heart  is  almost  in- 
finitely superior  to  the  reading  of  pages  conceived  and 
framed  in  the  study.  If  instruction  were  needed  upon 
this  point,  the  history  of  Methodism  in  this  country 
would  furnish  it  in  abundance.  With  a  ministry  con- 
fessedly inferior  in  scholarship,  at  least  in  its  begin- 
nings, but  with  direct  address  from  every  pulpit  to  the 
heart  and  life,  the  success  of  this  denomination  has  been 
enormous.  With  high  culture  on  the  part  of  its  teachers 
its  progress  would  possibly  have  been  wider,  but  they 
have  at  least  proved  that  the  direct,  spoken  discourse  is  a 
power  which  every  pulpit  should  assume  and  use  as  soon 
as  it  can.  The  question  whether  a  young  man  who  cannot 
acquire  the  ability  to  speak  well  without  reading  has  a  call 
to  preach  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  open  one.  At  any  rate, 
this  ability  is  what  all  divinity  students  are  striving  for. 


Religion  and  the  Church.  23 


Culture  and  Christianity. 

It  hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  the  tendency  of  modern 
culture  is  away  from  Christianity.  It  diverges  from  it 
not  only  in  its  faith,  or  lack  of  faith,  but  in  its  spirit  and 
in  its  effect  upon  character.  With  a  multitude  of  minds, 
more  or  less  intelligent,  culture  stands  in  the  place  of 
any  sort  of  cult.  To  these,  the  perfection  of  the  human 
being,  through  the  development  of  its  native  powers  and 
the  harmonization  of  those  powers  by  discipline  and 
happy  use  and  control,  seems  a  dream  quite  possible  to 
be  realized.  Turning  their  backs  to  faith,  they  give  one 
hand  to  science  and  the  other  to  art,  to  be  led  upward 
and  onward  in  "  the  path  of  progress."  They  hold 
meetings  ;  they  "  preach  ;  "  they  address  the  "  Infinite 
Mystery"  in  "aspiration;"  they  go  through  various 
imitative  motions  which  show  that  Christian  ideas  haunt 
them,  while  they  pretend  to  ignore  every  fact  out  of 
which  those  ideas  have  grown.  It  is  always  well,  when 
one  gets  a  little  muddled  over  a  new  system  of  ideas, 
and  particularly  over  the  talk  about  it,  to  take  one  of 
them,  follow  it  out,  and  see  where  it  lands  a  man. 

One  large  portion  of  the  domain  of  culture  ultimates 
in  art.  It  is  in  art  that  it  comes  to  its  flower,  and  it  is 
in  the  reactions  of  art  upon  the  artist,  and  in  the  motives 
engendered  and  nourished  by  art,  that  we  learn  just  what 
this  kind  of  culture  does  for  a  man.  A  tree  is  known  by 
its  fruits.  Much  of  the  talk  of  culture  is  very  foggy. 
Many  of  its  assertions  and  propositions  arc  as  hard  to 
disprove  as  to  prove.  It  is  full  of  glittering  generalities  ; 
it  utters  ingenious  sophisms  ;  it  puts  on  superior  airs  ; 
and  many  a  simple-hearted  belie\er  wlio  knows  tliat  he 
holds  in  his  faith  something  tiiat  is  infinitely  fruitful  and 
valuable  stands  before  it  with  a  silent  tongue.  But  when 
it  begins  to  act,  it  begins  to  show  the  stuff  that  it  is  made 


24  Every-  Day    Topics. 

of.  It  talks  divinely  of  progress,  but  when  it  starts  to 
walk  it  goes  lame. 

If  we  may  judge  by  facts  that  are  painfully  patent, 
there  is  no  occupation  in  the  world  that  so  belittles  and 
degrades  men  and  women  as  that  which  is  based  upon, 
or  which  engages,  the  different  fine  arts.  In  literature, 
in  sculpture  and  picture,  in  the  theatre,  in  music,  in 
every  branch  of  art  that  enlists  the  higher  and  finer 
powers  of  men  and  women,  we  have  the  most  lament- 
able evidence  that  culture  has  not  one  purifying,  or  en- 
nobling quality  when  unaccompanied  by  religion.  In 
literature,  men  and  women  are  broken  up  into  cliques 
and  parties,  and  the  criticism  of  the  time  is  honeycombed 
with  jealousies  and  spites.  Selfishness  dominates  here 
as  in  other  domains  of  art.  It  is  charged  with  the  spirit 
of  detraction.  This  is  no  new  state  of  things.  One  has 
but  to  turn  over  the  pages  of  the  old  reviews,  or  listen 
to  the  echoes  of  Byron's  angry  protest,  to  learn  that  the 
present  time  is  a  legitimate  successor  of  the  past,  and 
that  brutality  of  the  grossest  type  may  characterize  the 
followers  of  the  sublimest  art  the  world  knows.  The 
highest  powers,  cultivated  to  their  highest  point,  speak- 
ing in  the  sweetest  voice  of  literary  art,  save  no  man 
from  being  a  sot,  a  debauchee,  an  adulterer,  a  disgusting 
boaster,  a  selfish  glutton  of  praise,  and  a  vindictive 
enemy  of  all  who  dispute  with  him  the  high  places  of 
the  public  admiration. 

If  all  this  can  be  said  of  literary  art,  and  of  those  who 
are  engaged  in  it,  what  shall  we  say  of  artists  of  other 
professions  and  names  ?  Why  is  it  that  so  bad  a  flavor 
lingers  around  the  opera-house  and  the  theatre  ?  Why 
is  it  that  the  church  protests  against  them  ?  It  is  not 
that  these  institutions  are  necessarily  bad.  It  is  not 
that  there  are  no  good  men  and  women  among  actors 
and  actresses.     It  is  because  that  from  the  dawn  of  the 


Religion  and  the  Church.  25 

drama  until  the  present  time,  the  stage  has  been  asso- 
ciated with  unworthy  lives,  impure  connections,  the 
most  degrading  jealousies,  the  bitterest  rivalries,  and  the 
most  disgusting  selfishness.  Nobody  knows  this  any 
better,  or  feels  it  more  keenly  when  they  stop  to  think  at 
all,  than  the  actors  and'  musicians  themselves.  It  is  all 
shamefully  and  notoriously  true.  Docs  not  music  purify 
those  who  devote  their  lives  to  it  ?  Not  at  all.  Not  in 
the  slightest  degree.  There  is  no  more  reformatory  or 
saving  power  in  music  than  in  the  lowest  of  menial  pur- 
suits. The  farmer,  who  lives  half  \\\i  time  among  his 
brutes,  is  likely  to  be  a  better  man  than  he  who,  suc- 
cessfully interpreting  some  great  master,  bows  nightly 
before  the  storms  of  popular  applause. 

Bear  us  witness,  ye  poets  and  actors,  ye  painters  and 
sculptors,  ye  singers  and  players  upon  instruments,  that 
your  arts  have  not  saved  the  most  of  you  from  becoming 
petty  and  selfish  men  and  women.  You  are  jealous  of 
one  another.  You  are  greedy  of  praise  and  of  the  gold 
it  brings.  You  know  that  there  is  nothing  in  your  heart 
that  enlarges  and  liberalizes  you,  that  restrains  you  from 
drunkenness  and  vices  that  shall  not  be  named,  that 
gives  you  sobriety  and  solidity  of  character,  that  en- 
larges your  social  sympathies,  that  naturally  leads  you 
into  organizations  for  helping  others  outside  of  your  own 
circle.  Bear  us  witness,  that  you  are  not  the  men  and 
women  who  are  relied  on  for  performing  the  duties  of  so- 
ciety. If  all  were  like  you,— if  all  were  controlled  by  the 
ideas  that  dominate  you, — if  all  shirked  the  duties 
of  social  and  civil  life  like  you, — if  all  were  as  much  un- 
fitted by  their  ideas  and  their  employments  as  you  are 
for  carrying  the  great  burdens  of  society,  what  do  you 
suppose  would  become  of  the  country,  and  what  would 
become  of  the  world  ? 

Now,  if  there  is  anything  in  art  that  can  take  the  placo 
2 


26  Every -Day    Topics. 

of  religion,  we  should  like  to  see  it.  If  there  is  anything 
in  culture  that  can  take  the  place  of  religion,  it  has  not 
yet  revealed  itself.  Culture  is  centred  in  self.  Self  is 
the  god  and  self  is  the  model  of  all  culture.  Why  should 
it  not  ultimate  in  selfishness  ?  Culture  assunr.cs  that 
what  is  present  in  a  man  needs  only  to  be  developed  and 
harmonized  to  lift  character  to  its  highest  point,  and  life 
to  its  highest  issues.  It  carries  no  idea  of  self  surrender, 
which  is  the  first  fact  in  practical  religion  of  any  valuable 
sort,  and  the  first  fact  in  all  good  development.  Greece 
and  Rome  had  plenty  of  culture,  and  are  still  our 
teachers  in  art,  but  the  beauty  that  looked  upon  them 
from  every  hill  and  gate  and  temple  could  not  save  them 
from  their  vices.  By  and  by,  culture  will  learn  how 
powerless  it  is  to  make  a  man  that  shall  be  worth  the 
making,  and  what  poor  instruments  science  and  art  are 
for  uprooting  the  selfishness  that  rules  the  world.  It  is 
slowly  learning  this,  and  men  who  have  bowed  low  to 
her  have  been  touched  with  that  divine  discontent  which 
nothing  but  religion  can  allay. 

Church  I^Iusic. 
There  are  great  varieties  and  contrarieties  of  opin- 
ion on  church  music,  as  well  among  pastors  as  congre- 
gations. It  begins  with  the  hymns.  There  are  those 
who  believe  that  theology  should  be  taught  by  hymns, 
that  appeals  to  heart  and  conscience  should  be  made  in 
hymns,  that  all  phases  of  religious  experience  and  feel- 
ing may  legitimately  be  addressed  through  hymns. 
There  are  others  who  reject  this  theory,  and  would  con- 
fine hymns  to  the  expression  of  penitence  or  praise  to 
God.  They  feel  that  a  hymn,  publicly  sung,  should  be 
an  address  of  the  human  heart  to  the  great  father  heart, 
and  not  an  address  of  man  to  man,  and  that  chietiy  this 
expression  should  be  confined  to  praise  and  thanksgiv- 


Religion  and  the   Chuych.  2J 

ing.  When  Mr.  Sankey  was  here,  he  was  inquired  of 
concerning  this  point,  and  his  answer,  very  definitely 
given,  was  that  he  regarded  singing  as  possessing  two 
different  offices  in  the  public  services  of  the  church — 
one  of  address  to  God,  and  anotlier  to  man.  Mr.  Sankey 
would  not  stand  very  high  as  an  authority  on  such  a 
matter,  but  his  idea  is  practically  adopted  in  every  hymn- 
book  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 

Now,  to  us,  there  is  something  almost  ridiculous  in 
the  hymns  which  undertake  the  offices  of  teaching,  preach- 
ing, and  exhortation.  Think  of  a  congregation  wailing 
out,  to  the  old  tunc  "  China,"  the  words: 

''  Why  do  yc  mourn  departing  friends 
Or  shako  at  death's  alarms  ?  "' 

Or  to  some  other  tune  : 

"  Think  gently  of  the  erring  one, 
And  let  us  not  forget 
However  darkly  stained  by  sin, 
He  is  our  brother  yet." 

Or  this,  to  old  "  Amsterdam  :  " 

"  Time  is  winging  us  away 
To  our  eternal  home  ; 
Life  is  but  a  winter's  day — 
A  journey  to  the  tomb." 


Or  this: 


Behold  the  day  is  come, 

The  righteous  Judge  is  near  ; 

And  sinners  trembling  at  their  doom, 
Sliall  soon  their  sentence  hear. " 


Or  this  exhortation: 


"  Why  will  ye  waste  on  trifling  cares 
That  life  which  God's  compassion  sjiares?  ' 


28  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

Or  this  statement  and  inquiry: 

''  What  various  hindrances  we  meet 
In  coming  to  a  mercy-seat ! 
Yet  who  that  knows  the  worth  of  prayer 
But  wishes  to  be  often  there?'' 

I  We  take  all  the  above  extracts  from  the  very  best 
hymn-book  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  and  we  sub- 
mit that  to  stand  up  and  sing  them  is  an  absurd  perform- 
ance, especially  when  it  takes  place  in  public.  Some  of 
them  are  utterly  unsingable  when  regarded  with  relation 
to  any  natural  impulse,  or  any  gracious  impulse,  for  that 
matter.  We  laugh  at  the  absurdities  of  the  opera, — at  a 
man  who  straddles  around  the  stage,  yelling  his  love  or 
his  defiance  to  a  tune,  and  our  laugh  is  perfectly  justifia- 
ble. Bat  for  the  reverence  with  which  we  regard  every- 
thing that  has  been  even  remotely  associated  with  the 
house  and  worship  of  God,  we  should  say  that  the  sing- 
ing of  such  songs  as  these  would  be  equally  laughable. 
Still,  Mr.  Sankey  and  those  who  agree  with  him  will  keep 
on  singing  these  songs,  wc  suppose.  It  gives  us  great 
pleasure,  however,  to  notice  that  they  are  growing  fewer 
and  fewer  from  year  to  year  and  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration, in  new  collections,  and  that  the  hymns  that  are 
sung  are  addressed  more  and  more  to  God,  while  to  the 
voice  in  the  pulpit  are  left  the  various  offices  to  which 
song  has  hitherto  been,  as  we  think,  illegitimately  sub- 
jected. 

Leaving  the  hymns,  we  come  to  the  question  of  music. 
What  office  has  music  in  the  public  services  of  the 
church  ?  Let  us  say  right  here  that  we  have  not  ob- 
jected to  the  hymns  belonging  to  the  class  from  which  wc 
have  quoted,  because  we  do  not  think  that  man's  sensi- 
bilities should  not  be  appealed  to  through  music.  We 
have  objected  to  them  mainly  because  they  are  unnatu- 
rally wedded  to  music.     We  do  not  naturally  sing  about 


Religion  and  the  Church.  29 

the  judgment  day,  or  about  death,  or  about  our  erring 
brother,  or  about  the  rapid  passage  of  time.  The  wed- 
ding of  things  like  these  to  music  is  an  absurdity.  So 
we  recur  to  the  question — "  What  office  has  music  in 
the  pubhc  services  of  the  church  ?  "  It  has  two.  The 
first  and  foremost  is  to  give  a  natural  expression  of  the 
feelings  of  the  soul  toward  the  object  of  its  worship. 
The  second  is  to  elevate  the  spirit  and  bring  it  into  the 
mood  of  worship  and  the  contemplation  of  high  and  holy 
things.  It  has  an  office  quite  independent  of  any  words 
with  which  it  maybe  associated.  Music  itself  is  a  lan- 
guage which  many  religious  hearts  understand,  and  by 
which  they  are  led  into  and  through  a  multitude  of  re- 
ligious thoughts  and  emotional  exercises.  The  voluntary 
upon  the  organ,  played  by  a  reverent  man,  is  perfectly 
legitimate  sacred  music,  to  be  executed  and  listened 
to  at  leisure. 

Nobody,  we  presume,  will  question  what  we  say  about 
this,  yet  in  practice  there  is  the  widest  ditference  among 
pastors  and  churches.  One  pastor  or  church  demands 
the  highest  grade  of  music  to  be  performed  by  a  thorough- 
ly drilled  quartette  or  choir  ;  another  subordinates  the 
choir,  or  discards  it  altogether,  and  will  have  nothing  but 
congregational  singing.  The  former  make  very  much  of 
the  musical  element,  and  do  a  great  deal  to  act  upon  the 
sensibilities  of  the  worshippers  through  it.  The  latter 
make  little  or  nothing  of  the  musical  element,  and  think 
that  nothing  is  genuine  public  praise  but  that  which  is 
engaged  in  by  a  whole  congregation.  Now,  it  is  quite 
easy  to  overdo  the  music  of  a  church.  That  has  been 
done  in  this  city,  in  many  notable  instances,  but  we  very 
much  prefer  a  mistake  in  that  direction  to  one  in  the 
other.  There  are  some  ministers  who  forget  that  a  choir 
may  just  as  legitimately  lead  the  praise  of  a  congrega- 
tion, as  anyone  of  them  may  lead    its  prayer,  and  that  a 


30  Every-Day   Topics. 

choir  has  a  sacred  office  and  function  in  the  church  quite 
independent  of  themselves.  If  a  preacher  may  be  fol- 
lowed in  his  petition  by  his  congregation,  certainly  a 
choir  may  be  followed  in  its  expression  of  thanksgiving. 

For  ourselves,  we  are  very  much  afraid  of  the  move- 
ment toward  congregational  music.  The  tendency  thus 
far  has  been  to  depreciate  not  only  the  ciuality  of  music, 
in  the  churches,  but  the  importance  of  it,  and  to  make 
public  worship  very  much  less  attractive  to  the  great 
world  which  it  is  the  church's  duty  and  policy  to  attract 
and  to  influence.  The  churches  are  full,  as  a  rule,  where 
the  music  is  excellent.  This  fact  may  not  be  very  flat- 
tering to  preachers,  but  it  is  a  fact,  and  it  is  quite  a  legiti- 
mate question  whether  a  church  has  a  right  to  surrender 
any  attraction  that  will  give  it  a  hold  upon  the  attention 
of  the  world,  especially  if  that  attraction  is  an  elevating 
one,  and  in  the  direct  line  of  Christian  influence.  Con- 
gregational singing  is  well  enough  in  its  place  and  pro- 
portions, but  very  little  of  the  inspiration  of  music  conies 
through  it.  It  is,  indeed,  more  of  a  torture  than  a  pleas- 
ure to  many  musical  and  devout  people.  The  ideal 
arrangement,  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  a  lirst  class  quartette, 
made  up  of  soloists,  who  take  a  prominent  part  in  the 
public  service,  with  a  single  choral  in  each  service  given 
to  the  congregation  to  sing.  In  this  way,  the  two  offices 
of  music  in  public  religious  assemblies  seem  to  be  se- 
cured more  surely  and  satisfactorily  than  in  any  other. 

Some  Thin  \'irtues. 
As  a  working  rule,  in  the  conduct  of  life,  we  suppose 
there  is  no  better  than  that  which  has  been  denominated 
"  The  Golden  Rule,"  but  its  author  could  hardly  h:i\  e 
regarded  it  as  the  highest  and  best.  There  seems  to  be 
no  motive  bound  up  in  it  but  a  selfish  one,  and  no  stand- 
ard of  morality  but  the  actor's  own  desires.     The  Golden 


Religion  and  the  ChnrcJi.  31 

Rule,  as  wc  call  it,  seems  to  be  hardly  more  than  com- 
mon decency  formulated.  Nothing,  obviously,  can  be 
tL'ccnt  in  our  treatment  of  others  that  we  do  not  recog- 
nize as  proper  and  desirable  in  their  treatment  of  our- 
sjlves.  It  is  a  rule  that  seems  to  be  made  for  supreme 
selfishness.  Refrain  from  putting  your  foot  into  another 
pig's  trough,  unless  you  are  willing  to  have  another  pig 
l)ut  his  foot  into  your  trough.  One  of  the  great  mistakes 
of  the  world,  and  especially  of  the  Christian  world,  is  in 
t!ie  conviction  that  this  is  a  high  rule  of  action,  and  that 
the  virtue  based  upon  it  is  of  superior  value.  It  is  the 
thinnest  kind  of  a  virtue,  and  if  there  be  not  the  love  of 
God  and  man  behind  it,  to  give  it  vitality  and  meaning, 
it  can  never  minister  much  to  good  character.  What  a 
man  does,  actuated  by  the  motive  of  love,  he  does  nobly, 
and  the  same  thing  may  not  be  done  nobly  at  all  when 
done  in  accordance  with  the  rule  to  do  to  others  what  one 
would  like  to  have  others  do  to  himself. 

There  are  other  virtues  that  are  very  much  over-esti- 
mated, eminent  among  which  is  that  of  toleration.  We 
know  of  none  so  thin  as  this,  yet  this  is  one  over  which 
an  enormous  amount  of  bragging  is  done.  We  talk 
about  the  religious  toleration  practised  by  our  govern- 
ment, as  if  it  were  something  quite  unnatural  for  a  gov- 
ernment to  protect  its  own  people  in  the  exercise  of  their 
most  precious  opinions  and  privileges.  The  man  who 
personally  tolerates  all  men,  and  all  societies  of  men,  in 
the  exercise  of  their  opinions  upon  religion  and  politics, 
is  not  without  his  boast  of  it,  and  a  feeling  that  he  h;is 
outgrown  most  of  the  people  around  him.  The  sad  thing 
al)out  it  all  is,  of  course,  that  a  country  or  a  community 
can  be  so  blind  and  stupid  that  toleration  can  appear  to 
be  a  virtue  at  all,  or  so  bigoted  and  wilful  that  it  can 
even  appear  to  be  a  \ice. 

We  thank  no  man  for  tolerating  our  opinions  on  any 


32  Every- Day    Topics. 

thing,  nor  do  we  give  him  any  praise  for  it,  any  more 
than  we  thank  him  for  the  liberty  of  breathing  with  him 
a  common  air.  Toleration  is  the  name  that  we  give  to 
the  common  decencies  of  intellectual  and  moral  life.  It 
is  the  Golden  Ride  applied  to  the  things  of  opinion  and 
expression.  It  is  by  no  means  a  high  affair.  It  is  sim- 
ply permitting  others  to  do,  in  all  matters  of  politics  and 
religion,  freely,  in  our  presence  and  society,  what  wc 
claim  the  privilege  of  doing  in  their  presence  and  society. 
People  who  are  intolerant— and  we  are  informed  that 
there  are  such  in  this  country — are  simply  indecent. 
They  are  devoid  of  intellectual  courtesy.  They  are 
boors  who  are  out  of  place  among  a  free  people,  and,  no 
matter  whom  they  may  be,  they  ought  to  be  persistently 
snubbed  until  they  learn  polite  intellectual  manners. 
The  spirit  of  intolerance  is  a  spirit  of  discourtesy  and  in- 
sult, and  there  is  no  more  praise  due  a  man,  or  a  sect, 
for  being  tolerant,  than  there  is  due  a  man  for  being  a 
gentleman  ;  and  we  never  saw  a  gentleman  yet  who 
would  not  take  praise  for  being  a  gentleman  as  involv- 
ing an  insult.  It  is  at  least  the  thinnest  of  all  virtues  to 
brag  about. 

There  is  a  virtue  lying  in  this  region,  though,  alas  ! 
but  little  known,  which  needs  development.  Toleration, 
as  we  have  said,  is  a  very  thin  affair.  Men  tolerate  each 
other  and  each  other's  sentiments  and  opinions,  and  are 
much  too  apt  to  be  content  with  that.  They  altogether 
overestimate  the  value  of  it,  but  beyond  this  there  is  in 
some  quarters,  and  ought  to  be  in  all  quarters,  a  sense 
of  brotherhood  among  all  honestly  and  earnestly  inquir- 
ing souls.  There  is  no  reason  why  Dean  Stanley  and 
Mr.  Darwin  should  not  be  the  most  affectionate  friends. 
There  is  no  good  reason  why  Cardinal  Manning  and  Mr 
Matthew  Arnold  should  not  be  on  the  most  delightful 
terms  of  intimacy.     There  is  no  good  reason  why  Mr 


Religion  and  tJie  Church.  33 

Frothingham  and  Dr.  Hall,  Dr.  Draper  and  Dr.  Taylor 
should  not  be  bound  up  in  a  loving  brotherhood.  They 
undoubtedly  tolerate  one  another  now.  It  would  be  sim- 
ply indecent  for  them  to  do  anything  less,  but  we  fear 
that  we  have  not  quite  reached  the  period  when  these 
men,  with  a  profound  respect  for  one  another's  man- 
hood, truthfulness,  and  earnestness,  recognize  each  other 
as  seekers  for  truth,  and  love  and  delight  in  each  other 
as  such.  We  are  all  interested  in  the  same  things,  but 
wc  happen  to  be  regarding  them  from  different  angles. 

Some  of  the  sincerest  men  in  the  world  are  the  doubt- 
ers. 

"  There  is  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds." 

These  men  get  very  little  of  the  sympathy  that  by  right 
belongs  to  them.  They  have  as  great  a  love  for  truth 
as  anybody,  and  are  looking  for  it,  but  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  their  minds,  or  by  the  power  of  an  unfortunate 
education,  or  the  influence  of  an  untoward  personal  ex- 
perience, they  find  themselves  thrown  off  into  a  region 
of  skepticism,  where  they  have  no  congenial  companion- 
ship. They  do  not  get  even  toleration,  from  those  par- 
ticularly who  inherit  their  creeds,  and  to  whom  faith  is 
as  natural  as  breathing.  These  men  ought  all  and  al- 
ways to  be  brought  affectionately  into  the  great  brother- 
hood of  truth-lovers  and  trulh-seekcrs,  and  a  Christian 
of  any  name  who  cannot  throw  his  warmest  sympathies 
around  these,  and  regard  them  with  a  peculiarly  affec- 
tionate interest,  must  necessarily  be  a  very  poor  sort  of 
creature.  All  honest  truth-seekers  arc  always  truth- 
liiulers,  and  all  have  something  in  possession  that  will  be 
of  advantage  to  the  others.  Tiic  ilitVcrcnccs  between 
them  are  sources  of  wealth  to  the  whole. 

This  is  true  of  all  trulh-scekers,  and  it  is  jjarticularly 
true  of  the  different  sects  of  Chribtendoni.     Let  not  the 


34  Every-Day   Topics. 

Catholic  think  for  a  moment  that  he  has  nothing  to  learn 
of  the  Protestant,  and  let  not  the  Protestant  think  that 
he  holds  all  truth  to  the  exclusion  of  his  Catholic  brother. 
The  fact  that  all  these  sects  exist  and  find  vitality  enough 
in  their  ideas  to  keep  them  prosperously  together,  shows 
that  there  is  something  to  be  learned,  everywhere,  and 
among  them  all,  and  that  the  policy  is  poor  which  shuts 
them  away  from  one  another's  society.  It  is  better  to 
remember  that  truth  is  one,  and  that  those  who  are 
earnestly  after  it,  whether  they  deny  Christianity  or  pro- 
fess it,  whether  they  are  called  by  one  name  or  another, 
belong  together,  in  one  great  sympathetic  brotherhood  of 
affection  and  pursuit. 

"Is  Life  Worth  Living?" 
Mr.  Curtis  once  asked  Mr.  Greeley,  in  response  to 
a  similar  question  put  to  him  by  the  great  editor, 
"  How  do  you  know,  Mr.  Greeley,  when  you  have  suc- 
ceeded in  a  public  address  ?  "  Mr.  Greeley,  not  averse 
to  the  perpetration  of  a  joke  at  his  own  expense,  replied  : 
"  When  more  stay  in  than  go  out."  Mr.  Mallock's  fa- 
iTious  question,  answered  by  himself  in  a  weak  way,  and 
repeated  by  Professor  Mivart,  and  answered  in  a 
stronger  way,  is  practically  voted  on  every  day,  by  the 
entire  human  race,  and  decided  in  the  affirmative. 
"  More  stay  in  than  go  out,"  for  reasons  very  much  less 
important  than  those  considered  by  Mr.  Mallock  and 
Professor  Mivart.  There  are  great  multitudes  of  men 
who  possess  neither  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  nor  right- 
ness  of  life  nor  love,  who  yet  live  out  their  lives  in  the 
firm  conviction  that  it  pays  them  to  livc^men  who  are 
open  to  no  high  considerations,  such  as  would  ha\c 
weight  with  the  Mallocks  and  Mivarts. 

There  is  a  great  pleasure  in  conscious  being.     So  uni- 
.versal  is   this,  that  when   a   man   occasionally  takes  hi.j 


Religion  and  the  ChurcJi.  35 

life,  it   is  considered  by  those  whom   he   leaves  behind 
him  as  presumptive  proof  that  he  is  insane. 

We  say  of  a  man  who  designedly  ends  his  life  that  he 
is  not  in  his  right  mind.  One  of  the  most  pathetic  things 
about  death  is  the  bidding  good-bye  to  a  body  that  has 
been  the  nursery  and  home  of  the  spirit  which  it  has 
charmed  through  the  ministry  of  so  many  senses. 

"  For  who,  to  dumb  forgetfulness  a  prey, 

This  pleasing  anxious  being  e'er  resigned, 
Left  the  warm  precincts  of  the  cheerful  day, 
Nor  cast  one  longing,  ling'ring  look  behind  ?  " 

Men  find  their  pay  for  living  in  various  ways.  Hope 
may  lie  to  them,  but  they  always  believe  her,  neverthe- 
less. The  better  things  to  come,  of  which  she  tells  all 
men,  become,  indeed,  the  substance  of  the  things  de- 
sired ;  that  is,  expectation  is  a  constant  joy  and  inspira- 
tion. The  pay  for  this  day's  trouble  and  toil  is  in  the 
reward  which  is  expected  to-morrow.  That  reward  may 
never  come,  but  the  hope  remains  ;  and  so  long  as  that 
lives,  it  pays  to  live.  It  pays  some  men  to  live,  that 
they  may  make  money,  and  cominand  the  power  that 
money  brings.  To  what  enormous  toils  and  sacrifices 
the  love  and  pursuit  of  money  urge  a  great  multitude  of 
men  !  The  judgment  of  these  men  as  to  whether  life  is 
worth  living  is  not  to  be  taken  at  life's  close,  when  they 
sum  up  their  possessions  and  what  they  have  cost,  but 
while  they  are  living  and  acting.  A  man  whose  life  is 
exhausted  may  well  conclude  that  what  he  has  won  is 
vanity  ;  but  it  was  not  vanity  to  him  while  he  was  win- 
ning it,  and,  in  the  full  possession  of  his  powers,  he  be- 
lieved that  life  was  worth  living. 

Who  shall  estimate  the  inestimalile  ?  Who  sliall 
weigh  the  value  of  the  loves  of  life  ?  There  are  very  fe^r 
who  do  not  see  a  time  in  life  when  all  their  trials  would 


2,6  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

be  considered  a  cheap  price  to  pay  for  the  love  they  ex- 
ercise and  possess.  The  lover  who  wins  and  possesses 
his  mistress,  and  the  mother  who  carries  a  man-child 
upon  her  bosom,  drink  of  a  cup  so  full  and  so  delicious 
that,  whatever  may  be  the  ills  of  life,  they  sink  into  in- 
significance by  its  side.  A  single  year  of  a  great  satisfy- 
ing love  spreads  its  charm  over  all  the  period  that  fol- 
lows, and  often  sweetens  a  whole  life.  We  have  said  that 
there  is  great  pleasure  in  conscious  being,  and  the  state- 
ment covers  more  ground  than  at  first  view  appears,  for 
all  pleasures  are  simply  augmentations  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  being.  The  pleasure  that  comes  of  wine  is  of 
this  character — it  raises  and  intensifies  the  consciousness 
of  being,  and  makes  the  treasure  of  life  itself  for  the 
moment  more  abundant.  It  is  so  not  only  with  all  sen- 
sual delights,but  with  all  mental  and  spiritual  pleasures. 
They  stimulate  and  enlarge  the  sense  of  life,- — the  con- 
sciousness of  living  existence, — conferring  upon  it  only 
new  forms  and  flavors. 

The  pursuit  of  money  is  only  one  of  the  pursuits  of 
Jife.  Fame,  power,  literary  achievement,  art  in  a  hun- 
dred forms,  social  eminence — all  these  and  more  are 
objects  of  pursuit,  so  absorbing  and  delightful  that  men 
rind  abundant  reward  in  them.  Life  is  quite  worth  liv- 
ing to  all  those  who  find  engaging  objects  of  pursuit,  and 
especially  to  those  who  win  success  in  their  pursuits. 
We  repeat,  therefore,  that,  by  almost  a  unanimous  vote, 
the  human  race  practically  decides  every  day  that  life  is 
worth  living.  Mr.  Mallock  thinks  it  is  worth  living  pro- 
vided a  man  has  faith  in  a  great  church  ;  and  Professor 
Mivart— a  Catholic  himself — thinks  life's  highest  values 
are  in  the  doing  of  duty  and  in  love.  We  should  be  the 
last  to  claim  that  happiness  is  the  highest  aim  of  life, 
and  that,  unless  that  is  secured,  life  is  a  failure,  and  not 
worth  living.     To  do  right,  to  sacrifice  one's  self  for  love 


Religion  and  the   Church.  37 

— these  are  better  things  than  pleasure.  To  love  and 
to  be  loved — these  are  things  that  pay.  To  be  conscious 
of  nobility  of  character  and  unselfishness  of  life  ;  to  be 
conscious  that  our  lives  are  brought  into  affectionate  re- 
lations with  other  and  harmonious  life — what  are  these 
but  life's  highest  values  ?  What  are  these  but  the  high- 
est satisfactions  of  conscious  being  ? 

If  this  be  true, — that  character  and  duty  and  love  are 
better  than  pleasure  and  better  than  any  success  without 
them, — then  there  is  no  human  being  who  needs  to  say 
that  life  is  not  worth  living.  But  the  people  who  do  not 
succeed,  who  are  unloved,  who  live  lives  of  pain  and 
want  and  weakness — what  is  there  for  these  ?  A  chance 
for  conscious  nobility  of  character  and  life  ;  and  if  this 
be  not  enough,  as  it  rarely  is,  a  faith,  not  in  a  great 
church,  but  in  a  good  God,  and  an  immortality  that  will 
right  the  wrongs  and  heal  the  evils  of  the  present  life, 
and  round  into  completeness  and  symmetry  its  imper- 
fections and  deformities.  Is  it  not  foolish,  after  all,  to 
raise  the  question  of  success  or  failure  in  treating  a  life 
that  is  only  germinal  or  fractional  ? 

The  Sermon. 
We  hear,  in  the  different  pulpits,  a  good  many  sorts 
of  sermons  in  these  days,  and  from  the  pews  we  hear  a 
good  many  theories  and  ideas  about  sermons.  In  the 
ministry  of  the  Christian  religion,  the  sermon  seems  to  be 
of  growing  importance,  among  all  sects.  The  forms  of 
worship  vary  very  little.  Each  sect  has  its  prescribed, 
or  voluntary  and  yet  habitual,  formula  of  prayer  and 
praise,  to  which  it  adheres  generation  after  generation. 
It  makes  more  or  less  of  singing  at  different  times,  and 
has  its  liturgical  spasms  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  each  sect 
adlicrcs  to  its  form  of  worsliip  %\iih  groat  tenacity  and 
steadiness.      The   sermon,   however,  is    subject    to  great 


38  Every- Day   Topics. 

changes,  and  is  the  result  partly  of  the  general  culture 
of  its  time,  and  partly  of  theories  of  preaching  enter- 
tained by  the  church. 

The  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country,  like  its  mother 
in  England,  is  inclined  more  than  any  other  denomina' 
tion,  except  the  Catholic,  to  make  much  of  the  service 
and  little  of  the  sermon.  The  average  sermon  that  one 
hears  in  the  established  church  in  England,  as  in  the 
English  continental  chapels,  is  only  a  brief  and  unim- 
pressive homily,  written  with  great  propriety,  and  deliv- 
ered not  only  without  passion,  but  without  the  slightest 
attempt  at  oratory.  To  a  man  thirsting  for  religious 
impression,  or  for  intellectual  stimulus,  nothing  drearier, 
or  more  unrewarding,  can  be  im^agined  than  this  kind  of 
performance.  Much  more  is  made  of  the  sermon  in 
this  country  than  in  England,  however,  and  the  Episco- 
pal Church  could  not  hold  its  own,  and  grow  in  impor- 
tance and  influence  as  it  does  among  the  American  people 
without  a  better  sermon  than  prevails  in  the  English 
Church.  The  Brookses  and  Tyngs  are  among  the  most 
impressive  preachers  we  have,  and  the  Episcopal  sermon 
is  now  generally  like  the  sermons  of  the  other  sects — 
full  of  intellect,  vitality  and  eloquence.  Still  the  lean- 
ing is  toward  the  service,  as  the  thing  of  paramount  im- 
portance. 

In  all  the  other  denominations,  however,  the  sermon 
is  the  supreme  thing.  The  prayers  and  the  music  are 
simply  preliminaries  and  supplementaries  to  the  sermon. 
The  point  of  first  interest  is  the  topic,  in  its  announce- 
ment ;  and  the  question  as  to  whether  the  attendance  at 
church  has  paid  is  determined,  almost  entirely,  by  the 
character  of  the  discourse  which  follows.  Whether  this 
partiality  to  the  sermon  is  right  or  not,  wc  do  not  care 
to  judge.  \Vc  take  the  fact  as  it  stands,  for  the  jnirijose 
of  saying   a  word   uii  the    kind   of  scrmun    Jenianded  in 


Religion  and  the   Chare h.  39 

these  days.  Among  preachers  who  are  not  "  sensn- 
tional,"  as  the  word  goes,  we  hear  a  good  deal  now  abo;:t 
and  against  "  sensational  preaching."  We  confess  that 
we  Uke  sensational  preaching,  if  by  the  phrase  is  indi- 
cated that  which  produces  a  sensation.  If  by  this  phrase, 
however,  it  is  intended  to  indicate  the  kind  which  is  ac- 
companied by  theatrical  tricks,  and  startling  phrase- 
ology, and  rough  pulpit  manners,  we  dislike  it  as  much 
as  any  one  can.  A  clown  is  never  more  out  of  place 
than  when  he  is  in  a  pulpit ;  and  we  may  add  that  the 
true  orator  is  never  more  in  his  proper  place  than  there. 
A  man  who  has  the  power  to  wake  up  his  audience  intel- 
lectually, to  rouse  their  sympathies,  to  address  them  by 
motives  so  powerful  as  to  exalt  them  to  determination  or 
to  action,  is  the  true  sensational  preacher.  This  is  the 
man  who  attracts  a  crowd  ;  and  the  man  who  can  be 
relied  upon  to  do  this  every  Sunday,  is  the  man  who 
holds  the  crowd. 

A  great  deal  of  fault  is  found  with  "  intellectual 
preaching,"  but  it  is  pretty  well  understood  now  that 
nothing  else  will  be  attractive.  The  world  knows  its 
duty  well  enough  now.  The  sermon  that  is  simply  good, 
that  is  charged  only  with  the  commonplaces  of  religion 
and  morality,  and  never  rises  into  eloquence  or  a  high 
range  of  thought  or  feeling,  might  almost  as  well  go  un- 
preached.  It  accomplishes  little  beyond  disgusting  its 
hearers  with  going  to  church.  The  obvious,  common 
things  that  may  be  said  about  any  given  text  of  Scrip- 
ture, are  exactly  the  things  that  ought  never  to  be  said  in 
the  pulpit,  for  in  these  things  the  pulpit  is  no  wiser  than 
the  pew.  One  of  the  great  reasons  for  the  lack  of  pop- 
ular attraction  to  the  pulpit  lies  in  the  fact  that  brains 
iMiough  arc  not  put  into  the  sermons.  The  thinking  in 
a  sermon  must  be  superior  to  the  average  thinking  of  an 
audience,  to  produce  any  elfcL;!  upon  it.  and  if,   in  these 


40  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

days,  any  man — no  matter  how  gifted  he  may  be — imag' 
ines  that  he  may  halt  in  his  enterprise  of  earnest  and 
profound  preparation  for  his  preaching,  without  damage 
to  himself  or  his  work,  he  is  sadly  mistaken.  His  slip- 
shod stuff  will  be  detected  every  time,  and  pass  to  his 
discredit. 

We  know  of  no  profession  or  calling  so  exacting  in  its 
demands  as  that  of  the  pulpit  ;  we  know  of  none  that  is 
capable  of  winning  greater  rewards  of  influence  and 
affection,  but  in  these  days  the  pulpit  is  a  bad  place  for 
a  lazy  man,  or  one  who  is  inclined  in  any  way  to  under- 
rate the  popular  intelligence  concerning  both  his  profes- 
sion and  himself.  Goodish  homilies  have  gone  out,  and 
high  discourses  have  come  in.  The  best  thinking  that 
the  best  men  can  do,  the  best  English  they  can  com- 
mand, and  the  most  impressive  delivery  of  which  they 
are  the  masters,  are  called  for,  every  time  they  appear 
before  those  who  have  sufficiently  loved  and  trusted 
ihem  to  place  them  in  their  high  office.  The  public  are 
not  deceived.  No  facility  of  words  can  cover  sterility  ot 
thinking.  A  preacher  who  docs  not  do  his  best  every 
time  is  in  constant  danger  of  doing  himself  irretrievable 
damage. 

There  are  certain  economies  of  pulpit  oratory  that 
demand  more  attention  from  our  most  successful  preach- 
ers of  sermons.  It  is  a  great  temptation  to  a  powerful 
man  who  finds  a  plastic  congregation  in  his  hands,  to 
continue  his  conquest  of  conviction  and  emotion  beyond 
the  point  of  triumph.  There  is  a  charm  in  mastery 
which  leads  to  long  sermons — to  talking  after  the  sermon 
is  done.  This  breeds  uneasiness,  and  always  detracts 
from  the  best  result.  It  is  always  a  mistake,  and  we 
know  of  a  dozen  eminent  men  who  are  constantly  mak- 
ing it. 

After  all,  the  best  and  most  important  qualifications  for 


Religion  and  the  ChnrcJi.  41 

preaching  a  good  sermon  is  an  overmastering  belief  in 
Christianity.  There  is  so  much  preaching  done  that 
leads  to  admiration  of  the  preacher  rather  than  to  faith 
in  and  love  of  Christ,  that  earnestness  cannot  be  too 
much  insisted  on,  or  too  highly  estimated.  So  it  is  an 
excellent  thing  for  a  preacher  to  be  a  Christian,  if  he  de- 
sires to  accomplish  by  his  preaching  anything  beyond 
his  own  elevation. 

Mr.  Huxley's  Visit. 

We  are  not  among  those  who  deprecated  Mr.  Huxley's 
late  visit  to  America,  and  certainly  not  among  tliose 
who  regret  that  he  came.  There  was  an  indefinable 
dread  of  the  man  among  many  religious  circles,  as  if  he 
were  not  only  an  enemy,  but  a  very  powerful  enemy, 
who  was  pretty  sure  to  do  mischief.  The  result,  we  are 
sure,  not  only  disappointed  them,  but  failed  to  give  the 
expected  support  to  those  who  have  been  inclined  to 
favor  the  Darwinian  hypothesis.  The  first  lecture  in- 
troduced a  trick  quite  unworthy  a  fearless  man  of  science, 
viz.,  that  of  making  Milton  bear  the  onus  of  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  Creation.  To  whip  the  Bible  around  the 
shoulders  of  the  great  poet,  and  assume  to  fight  a  man, 
when,  in  truth,  he  intended  to  figlit  what  all  believers 
agree  in  regarding  as  a  sacred  book,  and  most  of  them 
as  an  inspired  and  authoritative  book,  was  not  a  pretty 
or  a  manly  thing  to  do.  It  was  a  cunning  performance, 
we  admit,  but  it  was  the  performance  of  a  pettifogger, 
and  detracted  very  materially  from  the  popular  respect 
which  had  been  accorded  to  the  man  and  his  utterances. 

It  is  to  be  presumed  that  Mr.  Darwin's  principal  apos- 
tle would  present  his  facts  and  his  arguments  in  the 
most  convincing  way  possiljle  to  him.  He  took  tlirce 
evenings  for  the  task,  and  had  the  held  all  to  liimself ; 
but  v.-e  do  not  hesitate  to  s;>v  thai  he  lailed    in    the  "  de- 


42  Every-Day   Topics. 

monstrative  evidence  "  offered  in  his  closing  lecture  to 
fulfil  the  promises  made  in  the  first  two.  Had  he  de- 
monstrated the  soundness  of  his  theory,  people  would 
have  believed  in  it.  That  the  most  of  them  did  not, 
ought  to  be  regarded  by  Mr.  Huxley  as  evidence — worthy, 
at  least,  of  his  consideration — that  his  "demonstrative 
evidence  "  demonstrated  nothing.  For,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, the  religious  mind  of  the  country  is  not  as  much 
afraid  of  the  theory  of  evolution  as  it  was,  and  is  not  proof 
against  conviction,  as  it  might  once  have  been.  It  has  ap- 
prehended and  accepted  the  fact  that  it  takes  as  great  a 
power  to  originate  an  order  of  beings  through  evolution 
as  by  a  direct  act  of  creation,  and  that  to  bind  up  all  the 
possibilities  and  potencies  of  life  in  protoplasmic  masses, 
or  ascidian  cells,  is  as  marked  an  exhibition  of  Almighti- 
ness  and  infinite  ingenuity  as  it  would  be  to  speak  into 
existence  the  perfected  creatures  which  we  know,  and 
which  we  are. 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  audiences  which 
assembled  to  listen  to  Mr.  Huxley  were  tractable  audi- 
ences. They  were  not  only  tractable,  but  they  were 
capable.  They  were  fully  adequate  to  the  understanding 
of  his  theory,  and  the  weighing  of  his  evidences  and 
arguments  ;  and  we  have  yet  to  learn  that  he  largely,  or 
even  appreciably,  increased  the  number  of  his  disci- 
ples. Men  went  away  feeling  that,  after  all,  the  theory 
of  evolution  was  nothing  but  a  theory, — that  it  is  still  so 
much  an  hypothesis  that  it  can  lay  no  valid  claim  to 
a  place  in  science.  Certainly,  Mr.  Huxley  shook  no 
soundly  reasoning  man's  belief  in  God  as  the  author 
of  all  life.  "  In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth."  When  that  beginning  was, — how  many 
ages  that  beginning  covered, — nobody  pretends  at  this 
day  to  know.  Everybody  knows,  however,  that  a  stream 
can  rise  no  hiuher  than  its  fountain.     If  the  conduits  and 


RcligioJi  and  the   CliiircJi.  43 

receptacles  into  whicli  that  stream  has  been  poured  are 
capable  of  retaining  it,  and  incapable  of  conducting  it 
further,  it  may  not  rise  so  high.  It  seems  to  us  repug- 
nant to  human  reason  that  a  low  form  of  life,  uninformed 
by  a  higher  life,  has  the  power  to  evolve  a  form  of 
life  higher  than  itself.  There  is  not  an  analogy  of 
nature  which  does  not  niilitate  against  such  a  conclu- 
sion. There  are  none  of  the  lessons  of  science  which 
do  not  lead  directly  away  from  it.  God  may  work 
toward  creative  ends  through  processes  of  evolution,  or 
he  may  not.  A  horse  may  have  been  derived  from  a 
three-toed  animal,  one  of  whose  toe-nails  spread  into  a 
hoof,  with  its  wonderful  tarsus  and  metatarsus,  or  he 
may  not.  A  man  may  have  descended,  or  ascended, 
from  a  monkey,  or  he  may  have  been  created  by  a  di- 
vine fiat.  It  matters  very  little,  so  long  as  God  is  recog- 
nized as  the  author  of  life,  and  the  designer  of  its  multi- 
tudinous forms. 

And  here  is  where  all  the  trouble  and  fear  originate. 
The  Christian  theist  shrinks  from  losing  his  God.  He 
finds  that  as  philosophers  go  mousing  among  second 
causes,  they  lose  the  disposition  to  look  up.  When  Mr. 
Tyndall  asserts  that  he  finds  in  matter  the  promise  and 
the  potency  of  all  forms  and  qualities  of  life,  the  Chris- 
tian sees  that  God  is  left  out  of  the  question  altogether, — 
that  the  creation  is  left  without  a  creator,  that  life  is  left 
without  an  author,  that  his  hope  is  vain,  and  that  his 
faith  is  also  vain.  He  is  accounted  but  an  animal  of  the 
highest  class,  that  propagates  other  animals,  and  he  and 
they  are  to  die,  antl  come  to  an  end.  He  can  contem- 
plate such  a  conclusion  only  with  horror.  His  life  loses 
all  its  meaning  in  the  presence  of  it.  If  this  is  all ;  if  we 
are  only  animals  ;  if  we  have  no  res])onsibility  ;  if  our 
destiny  does  not  take  hold  of  eternity,  he  will  say,  "  let 
us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 


44  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

It  seems  to  us  to  be  about  time  for  Christian  men  and 
women,  and  especially  for  Christian  teachers,  to  stop 
shaking  in  the  presence  of  science  and  scientific  men,  in 
the  fear  that  God  is  to  be  counted  out  of  the  universe, 
for  such  a  conclusion  is  simply  impossible.  The  re- 
ligious element  in  man,  in  all  ages  and  among  all  peo- 
ples, is,  perhaps,  the  highest  proof  we  have  that  a  Being 
exists  who  is  to  be  worshipped,  loved,  adored,  obeyed. 
Beyond  this  lies  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  the  "  be- 
ginning "  of  anything  without  a  supreme  first  cause. 
To  suppose  that  a  nebulous  mass  appeared  in  one  of  the 
interstellar  spaces,  of  itself ;  that,  after  a  time,  motion 
began  in  it,  of  itself,  and  went  on  until  the  whole  mass 
revolved  and  commenced  condensation  ;  that  one  after 
another  it  threw  off  rings  which  cracked  and  curled  up 
into  burning  worlds,  always  condensing  and  cooling, 
and  revolving  around  the  great  mass  in  the  centre  ;  that 
in  one  of  these  worlds,  incandescent  at  first,  there  went 
on  for  ages  and  cons  the  processes  that  were  to  fit  it  for 
the  residence  of  life,  and  that  then  life  appeared  upon 
it,  of  itself,  in  such  myriad  forms  and  adaptations  that 
the  most  industrious  and  ingenious  human  inquirer  is 
left  utterly  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  so  much  as  the  hum- 
blest plant  at  his  feet,  or  the  tiniest  insect,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  his  own  body  and  his  own  mind, — we  say  that  to 
suppose  that  all  this  took  place  without  an  infinite  ex- 
ercise of  power  and  ingenuity,  —  without  intelligent 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends, — is  to  suppose  an  absurdity 
which  no  healthy  reason,  healthily  working,  can  possibly 
accept. 

It  is  not  only  time  for  Christian  men  to  stop  shaking 
before  science  and  scientific  men,  but  it  is  time  to  re- 
ceive them  as  discoverers  of  God's  works  and  ways  of 
working.  We  have  learned  a  great  deal  from  them,  and 
we  arc  to  learn  a  great  deal  more.     We  arc  not  con- 


Religion  and  the  Church.  45 

cerned  in  their  conclusions.  We  may  pity  them  for  their 
bhndncss  and  egotism,  but  we  must  respect  them  for 
their  earnest  work  and  their  honesty.  It  will  all  come 
out  right  in  the  end.  Their  work  is  only  begun,  and,  in 
the  meantime,  God  will  not  be  left  without  witnesses. 
Side  by  side  with  the  advancement  of  science,  the  reign 
of  religion  advances  in  the  world.  Many  of  our  old  be- 
liefs will  be  cast  aside  ;  many  of  our  old  dogmas  will  be 
shown  to  be  baseless  ;  but  the  belief  in  God  and  the 
confidence  of  his  paternal  interest  in  man  will  not  only 
never  die  out,  but  they  will  increase  with  every  onward 
step  that  science  achieves. 

Falling  from  High  Places. 
High  Christian  society,  both  in  New  York  and  Brook- 
lyn, has  been  shocked  again  and  again  during  the  past 
few  years,  by  the  fall  from  rectitude  of  its  eminent 
members.  These  cities  have  not  been  singular  in  their 
experiences.  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Chicago,  have 
all  furnished  their  instances  of  fall  from  high  Christian 
and  social  positions  into  infamy.  Men  who  have  been 
trusted  have  betrayed  their  trusts.  Men  who  have 
"  made  a  good  profession"  have  shamefully  or  shame- 
lessly belied  their  profession.  Whole  families  have  gone 
down  into  financial  ruin  and  social  disgrace  with  these 
men.  Some  of  the  delinquents  are  serving  out  their 
terms  in  the  State  prison,  and  some  of  their  innocent 
victims  and  family  friends  are  in  lunatic  asylums.  The 
whole  matter  has  been  horrible — too  horrible  to  dwell 
upon,  or  talk  about.  It  has  even  been  too  solemn  and 
su;4gcstive  to  gossip  over.  Under  the  revelations  of 
these  great  iniquities,  carried  on  for  years  in  secret,  men 
h:i\e  trem])Ied  for  themselves  and  their  friends.  It  has 
been  feared  that  these  were  but  the  out-croppings  of  an 
underlying  mass  of  infidelity  to  truth  and  honor.     Wc 


46  Eveiy-Day   Topics. 

have  almost  dreaded  to  look  into  the  morning  papers, 
lest  some  more  shocking  fall  than  all  should  be  re- 
vealed. 

Of  course  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  comment  upon 
the  subject — wise  and  otherwise.  The  scoffer  at  reli- 
gion has  had  his  fling.  The  conscious  scamp  has  had 
his  little  crow  over  his  long-bruited  conclusion  that  men 
are  all  alike,  and  that  all  are  scamps  as  far  as  they  dare 
to  be.  But  the  good  men  and  women,  in  the  church  and 
out  of  it,  have  taken  the  whole  matter  very  sadly  to 
heart ;  and  they  wonder  what  it  means.  Why  is  it,  at 
this  particular  time,  that  there  should  fall  upon  the 
Christian  church  such  disgrace  in  the  fall  of  its  mem- 
bers ?  Has  Christianity  no  hold  upon  men  ?  Does  it 
give  them  no  strength  under  temptation  ?  Does  it  in  no 
way  put  them  beyond  temptation  ?  How  is  it  that  men 
can  go  on  punctiliously  in  the  performance  of  their  out- 
ward Christian  duties,  while  consciously  guilty  of  offences 
against  the  law  which,  if  proved,  would  consign  their 
persons  to  prison  and  their  names  to  public  execration  ? 

There  is  a  good  deal  that  might  be  said  upon  the 
matter,  but  there  are  only  two  things  which  we  care  to 
notice.  The  first  is  that  we  have  passed  and  are  passing 
through  an  exceptional  period  in  political,  social,  and 
financial  history.  Smooth  times  would  have  spared  us 
most  of  the  disasters  which  we  so  sadly  lament.  The 
civil  war  furnished  great  opportunities  for  making  money 
rapidly,  and  the  men  who  made  it  rapidly  raised  their 
style  of  living  to  a  luxurious  grade.  So  many  made 
money  swiftly  that  they  had  the  power  to  revolutionize 
the  general  style  of  living.  In  this  way,  life  became 
more  expensive  to  everybody,  and  the  most  extraordi- 
nary exertions  were  made  by  all  men  to  win  a  share  in 
the  general  prosperity,  and  to  display  a  share  in  their 
dresses,  equipages,  and  homes.     We  did  not  hear  very 


Religion  and  tJie  CJturch.  47 

much  about  betrayals  of  trust  while  the  prosperity  was 
in  progress  ;  but  when  the  times  began  to  pinch,  and 
men  were  trying  to  bridge  over  little  gaps  in  their  in- 
come, without  showing  to  their  families  or  their  friends 
that  they  were  in  trouble,  the  mischief  began.  The 
first  steps  were  undoubtedly  very  small,  and  were  in- 
tended to  be  immediately  retraced  ;  but  the  pinch  in 
the  times  did  not  relax,  and  the  false  steps  never  were 
retraced  and  never  could  be  retraced.  The  following 
ones  were  the  steps  that  a  man  makes  when  dragged  at 
the  tail  of  a  hangman's  cart — irresistible. 

Now  wc  arc  simply  harvesting  the  crop.  The  mis- 
chief began  long  since,  under  the  pressure  of  special 
and  exceptional  temptations.  But  ought  not  Christianity 
to  have  been  equal  to  such  an  emergency  as  this  ?  This 
is  the  question  the  church  is  asking  of  itself  This  is  the 
question  the  world  is  asking  of  the  church,  and  this  is 
the  second  point  that  we  have  thought  worth  considering 
in  this  article. 

Now  why  does  the  world  ask  of  the  church  such  a 
question  as  this  ?  Who  taught  the  world  its  morality  ? 
Where  did  it  acquire  its  nice  notions  of  personal  honor 
and  honesty?  Whose  influence  has  planted  in  the 
public  mind  the  sense  of  integrity  and  purity — the  sense 
of  the  heinousness  of  infidelity  to  private  and  public 
trusts  ?  Christianity  has  been  the  world's  teacher,  and 
it  only  asks  the  question  which  the  church  has  taught  it 
to  ask.  Why  does  the  church  feel  througli  all  its  mem- 
bership the  deep  disgrace  of  these  untoward  revelations, 
save  for  the  reason  that  it  is  truly  Christian,  and  is  per- 
meated and  moved  by  tlic  spirit  which  these  crimes  ha\e 
violated.  If  the  church  were  trying  to  co\er  up  these 
crimes  and  to  sliicld  those  criminals  ;  if  slie  were  not 
shocked  and  grieved  to  licr  centre  ;  if  she  were  not  sadly 
questioning  herself  as   to   the   causes   of  these   terrible 


48  Every-Day    Topics. 

backslidings,  she  might  be  flouted  with  them.     As  it  is, 
no  decent  man  will  fail  to  give  her  his  sympathy. 

Feeling  just  this,  and  saying  so  much  as  this,  we  be- 
lieve that  we  have  the  liberty  to  say  a  little  more.  We 
feel  at  least  the  liberty  to  ask  a  question  or  two.  Is  it 
not  possible  that  in  the  pulpit  teaching  of  the  present  day 
we  make  a  little  too  much  of  salvation,  and  not  quite 
enough  of  righteousness  ? — a  little  too  much  of  the  tree, 
and  not  quite  enough  of  the  fruit  ? — a  little  too  much 
about  a  "  saving  faith,"  and  not  quite  enough  of  good 
works  ? — a  little  too  much  of  believing,  and  not  quite 
enough  of  living  ? — a  little  too  much  of  dogma,  and  not 
quite  enough  of  character  ?  Certainly  the  pulpit  has 
erred  in  this  matter,  and  erred  not  a  little.  It  is  the 
weak  place,  not  only  in  modern  preaching,  but  in  modern 
orthodox  theology  of  all  names  ;  and  if  the  church  wishes 
to  learn  the  lesson  of  her  failures,  she  will  find  it  here. 
A  man  whose  principal  motive  is  to  get  himself  saved  by 
compliance  with  certain  hard  conditions  of  repentance 
and  service,  is  a  pretty  poor  staff  to  lean  upon  in  the 
emergency  of  a  temptation  which  attacks  his  selfishness 
from  another  direction.  Our  revival  preaching,  unless 
supplemented  by  a  long  course  of  instruction  in  morality, 
is  pretty  poor  stuff.  It  serves  its  temporary  purpose 
well  enough,  perhaps  ;  but  if  conversion  is  anything  less 
than  the  beginning  of  a  drill  and  training  in  righteous- 
ness, it  amounts  to  very  little. 

The  Bondage  ov  the  Pulpit. 
The  phrase  which  furnishes  the  title  of  this  article  is 
not  original.  We  borrow  it  of  a  distinguished  orthodox 
theological  professor  in  Rochester,  who,  having  omitted 
the  articles  which  he  wrote  upon  it  from  his  "  Free  Lance  " 
book,  has  got  through  with  it,  we  suppose,  and  has  thus 
left  it  for  the  use  of  those  who  are  not  likely  to  become 


Religion  and  the  Church.  49 

theological  professors.  We  choose  it  now  to  introduce 
a  few  words  with  relation  to  the  criticism  of  certain 
papers  upon  recent  articles  of  ours  on  the  proscription 
of  certain  ministers  for  opinion's  sake. 

First,  if  we  have  seemed  to  blame  the  ecclesiastical 
bodies  that  deposed  Dr.  Blauvelt  and  Mr.  Miller  from 
the  ministerial  office,  let  us  place  ourselves  right.  We 
have  not  intended  to  blame  them.  We  do  not  see  how, 
regarding  the  work  of  these  men  as  they  did,  and  under 
the  obligations  of  constitution  and  rule  which  were  upon 
them,  they  could  have  done  otherwise.  They  were  not 
at  liberty  to  do  otherwise.  However  much  personal 
liking  for,  or  sympathy  with  these  writers,  the  ecclesias- 
tical bodies  may  have  felt,  they  had  no  choice  in  deal- 
ing with  them.  Dr.  Blauvelt  and  Mr.  Miller  had  thought 
and  come  to  conclusions  outside  of  the  machine,  and  the 
machine  was  obliged  to  cut  off  their  heads.  The  trouble 
is  with  the  machine,  and  the  machine  and  the  machine- 
makers  and  defenders  are  what  we  have  our  quarrel  with. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  although  the  men  in  question 
have  been  cast  out  of  the  ministry,  they  have  not  been 
cast  out  of  the  church.  That  is  entirely  another  thing. 
They  may  still  be — as  all  believe  them  to  be — good 
Christians,  but  they  arc  not  good  sectarians  ;  and  tliat 
is  all  that  this  deposition  means.  They  have  modified 
their  creed  without  in  any  way  degrading  their  Christian 
character  or  Christian  life.  Indeed,  the  latter  may  have 
been  very  much  improved  and  elevated.  At  any  rate, 
their  behavior  shows  \ery  well  by  the  side  of  that  of  the 
bodies  which  deposed  them.  Now  what  wc  want  to 
show  is  simply  this  :  th;!t  men — Christian  men — have 
been  cut  off  from  useful  positions,  not  because  they  have 
not  Christian  characters,  lives,  purposes,  intluencc,  but 
because,  following  the  li;.;hl  wliich  Cod  has  given  them 
in  their  reason,  and  loy.J  to  tlie  \  oice  ol  conscience,  they 


50  Every- Day   Topics. 

have  declared  that  some  of  their  views  of  Christian  truth 
are  changed.  This  is  what  we  find  fault  with,  viz.,  that 
the  church — the  sectarian  church,  and  we  hardly  have 
any  other — is  not  large  enough  to  think  in  ;  that  it  vir- 
tually puts  a  limitation  to  progress  in  the  development 
of  Christian  opinion.  We  have  no  quarrel  with  men  ; 
we  have  no  quarrel  with  newspapers.  We  would  like  to 
do  what  we  can  to  make  a  larger  place  for  Christian 
teachers.  Do  they  object  to  it  ?  Can  they  not  be 
trusted  in  a  larger  place  ?  Would  they  be  likely  to 
abuse  their  liberty  if  their  creeds  were  shorter  and  more 
elastic  ?  Then  we  must  reverse  all  our  American  ideas 
of  the  influence  of  liberty  upon  the  intelligent  human 
mind. 

The  Christian  at  Work  undertakes  to  expose  to  us 
the  absurdity  of  our  fault-finding  with  the  degradation 
from  office  of  Messrs.  Blauvelt  and  Miller  in  these  words  : 

"  But  let  us  put  to  the  accomplished  editor  of  Scrihiicr's  one 
question  :  Suppose  he  accepted  an  article  from  an  author,  to  be 
written  on  a  certain  subject,  for  the  editorial  department  oi  Scrib- 
iicr's  ;  suppose  the  article  contained  an  urgent  plea  for  Commun- 
ism and  Socialism,  honestly  advocating  them  as  essential  to  the 
v.elfare  of  society  and  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  our  age  ;— 
would  the  editor  print  that  article  ;  and  if  not  would  there  be 
'  anything  like  free  thought  or  free  speech  within  the  '  limits  of  the 
Scribncr  co\ers7 — would  there  be  a  magazine  writer  who  would 
not  realize  that  'his  brain  is  imprisoned  and  his  hands  tied?' 
Does  not  the  editor  oi  Scr/bner  see  how  absurd  his  position  is  ?  " 

Is  it  as  bad  as  this  ?  Can  the  relation  which  exists 
between  the  constituting  power  and  the  minister  in  of- 
fice be  compared  to  that  which  exists  between  an  edi- 
tor and  his  subordinates  ?  Is  he  but  a  mouthpiece  of 
embodied  ecclesiastical  opinion?  Has  he  absolutely  no 
liberty  at  all?  Are  reason,  conscience,  hca\"cnly  tc.i:!;- 
ing  and  inspiration  for  which  tlie  minister  pniy:i,  only  i  > 
lia\j   p'-y    within   certain   Ijount!;,  imposed   l;y    outbule 


Religion  and  tJic   CJiurcJi.  51 

human  authority  ?  Then  the  teacher  is  indeed  a  slave, 
and  is  degraded  by  the  act  which  installs  him  in  office. 

But  the  comparison  is  not  entirely  fair  to  us  or  to  the 
writer's  own  side  of  the  question.  The  conditions  are 
not  quite  so  bad  as  he  represents  them.  He  has  seen  fit 
to  confine  his  illustration  to  editorial  articles — to  the 
editor's  individual  opinions.  He  would  be  more  just  if 
he  would  apply  it  to  the  whole  magazine,  and  there  we 
should  meet  him  with  the  statement  that  while  the  drift 
and  purpose  of  the  Afonihly  are  strongly  along  the  lines 
of  religion  and  morality — of  liberty  and  purity  and  tem- 
perance and  Christian  culture — so  strongly  that  no  fool 
can  mistake  them,  and  no  fool  does  mistake  them — wc 
are  all  the  time  publishing  opinions  which  we  do  not  be- 
lieve in.  Wc  should  not  be  disposed  to  suppress  a  plea 
for  socialism  or  communism,  if  it  were  well  written,  by  a 
true  and  honest  man,  though  wc  hold  the  doctrines  which 
these  words  popularly  represent  in  lively  detestation.  Wc 
have  always  been  trying  to  give  the  world  of  thinkers  a  fair 
chance,  and  to  let  the  people  know  what  honest  thinkers 
arc  thinking,  and  what  they  are  thinking  about.  Orthodox 
and  heterodox  alike  have  been  welcomed  in  these  pages, 
and  the  liberty  of  the  latter  has  always  seemed  to  make 
them  more  interesting  writers.  The  orthodox  are  always 
running  their  machine,  whether  as  politicians  or  secta- 
rians, and  never  dare  to  get  outside  of  it.  We  never  fail 
to  know  what  they  are  going  to  say.  Wc  have  been 
hearing  it  for  nearly  sixty  years,  and,  while  it  did  very 
well  for  the  first  thirty,  the  reiteration  becomes  tiresome. 

We  heard  defined,  a  few  Sundays  since,  from  a  pulpit 
as  generous  as  it  is  able,  the  distinction  between  a  pro- 
fession and  a  vocation.  Tliere  arc  men  who  choose  to 
be  preacliers.  Having  carefully  weighed  all  other  pro- 
fessions in  the  balance,  they  adopt  tlir  ininislcrial  pio- 
fcsjiun  ;    yet  a  great  niu'lilu^lc  ot  them  lui\e  wo  \ocaliua. 


S2  Every -Day    Topics. 

They  are  not  called  to  preach.  It  is  not  a  ''woe"  to 
them  if  they  do  not  preach.  They  do  not  preach  be- 
cause they  must  preach.  We  can  imagine  a  set  of  sim- 
ple professional  men,  who  will  be  willing  to  take  their 
creed  and  stay  with  it,  and  stand  by  it,  and  persecute 
their  betters  who,  with  the  vocation  to  preach,  take  their 
license  from  the  highest  source,  and  the  liberty  that  al- 
ways goes  with  it.  When  such  men  as  Swing  and  Eg- 
gleston  and  Murray,  with  their  crowded  churches,  find 
themselves  happier  outside  of  the  great  sectarian  organ- 
izations than  within  them — more  attractive,  more  use- 
ful, more  influential — the  people  ought  to  learn  some- 
thing of  the  vivifying  effect  of  Christian  liberty,  and  the 
necessity  of  either  casting  aside,  or,  if  that  be  not  prac- 
ticable, of  greatly  modifying,  the  old  machines.  A  min- 
ister who  apprehends  enough  of  essential  Christian  truth  to 
be  a  thorough  Christian  himself,  in  character  and  in  life,  is 
good  enough  to  teach,  if  he  has  a  divine  vocation  to  teach, 
and  the  machine  that  cuts  off  his  head  is  a  wretched 
machine,  which,  in  our  opinion,  ought  to  be  smashed. 

But  what  a  lot  of  "  religious  newspapers"  would  be 
smashed  under  it !  Ah  !  We  had  not  thought  of  that ! 
How  we  should  dislike  to  lose  The  New  York  Observer 
and  TJie  Congrcgationalist !  (Handkerchief.) 

Sunday  Bummers. 
The  poor  we  have  always  with  us,  and  whenever  we 
will  we  may  do  them  good.  And  the  will  to  do  them 
good,  in  a  spiritual  and  religious  sense,  at  least,  is  very 
genuine  and  very  abounding.  The  churches,  as  a  rule, 
cherish  no  desire  more  sincere  than  that  of  preaching 
the  gospel  to  the  poor,  without  money  and  without  price. 
We  do  not  stop  to  inquire  how  much  of  the  proselyting 
spirit  may  be  connected  with  this  desire,  or  what  \vorth- 
less  motives  may  sophisticate  it.     Their  wish  to  do  good 


Religion  and  the  Church.  53 

to  the  poor  is  genuine  enough,  and  to  do  it  at  their  own 
expense.  If  the  poor  could  know  how  heartily  they 
would  be  welcomed  in  houses  of  worship  frequented 
mainly  by  the  rich  and  the  well-to-do,  they  would  cer- 
tainly lose  their  shyness,  and  learn  a  kindlier  feeling  for 
those  more  fortunate  than  themselves.  It  is  undoubtedly 
the  business  of  the  rich  to  provide  religious  privileges 
for  the  poor,  and  the  duty  of  the  poor  to  accept  them. 
They  may  do  this  without  loss  of  self-respect,  and  with- 
out the  cultivation  of  the  pauper  spirit. 

There  is,  however,  a  real  difference  between  "  God's 
poor"  and  man's  poor.  There  are  great  multitudes 
who,  do  what  they  will  and  what  they  can,  must  always 
be  poor.  Few  and  inefficient  hands  to  labor,  and  many 
mouths  to  feed,  sickness,  misfortune — all  the  causes  of 
adversity — produce  poverty  which  seems  to  be  remedi- 
less ;  and  those  who  are  afflicted  with  such  poverty  may 
legitimately  be  called  "  God's  poor."  These  are  the 
involuntary  poor,  enveloped  and  embarrassed  by  cir- 
cumstances which  render  it  impossible  for  them  to  rise 
out  of  poverty.  For  these,  the  Christian  man  will  do 
what  he  can  without  pauperizing  them,  and  he  knows 
tliat  there  is  no  form  of  beneficence  so  little  likely  to  do 
them  harm  as  that  of  providing  for  their  religious  instruc- 
tion and  inspiration.  lie  knows  also  that  the  rectifica- 
tion and  elevation  of  habits  which  arc  the  natural  out- 
come of  religious  and  spiritual  influences,  are  ministers 
always  to  the  poor  man's  temporal  prosperity. 

In  contradistinction  from  these,  there  are  those  whom 
we  may  properly  call  "  man's  poor."  They  are  people 
who  spend  upon  themselves,  out  of  an  income  not  gener- 
ous, perhaps,  but  competent,  so  much  that  they  have 
nothing  left  with  which  to  bear  their  portion  of  the  bur- 
dens of  society.  They  live  well,  they  dress  well,  they 
maintain  what  they  consider  a  respectable  position  in 


54  Every-Day   Topics. 

society,  they  go  to  the  theatre  whenever  it  may  seem  desi- 
rable ;  they  spend  upon  themselves  and  their  luxuries 
their  entire  income,  and  habitually  steal  their  preaching. 
Many  of  these  people  are  quite  regular  in  their  attend- 
ance upon  the  Sunday  services  of  the  church,  but  they 
never  unite  with  it,  or  assume  a  single  responsibility 
connected  with  it.  There  are  churches  in  New  York,  as 
we  presume  there  may  be  in  most  cities,  which  are  the 
favorite  resorts  of  the  bummers — churches  which,  by  the 
numbers  in  attendance  on  Sundays,  seem  to  be  prosper- 
ous, but  which,  from  the  fact  that  they  are  so  largely 
made  up  of  bummers,  cannot  support  themselves  or 
their  pastors.  These  worshippers  make  a  very  well- 
dressed  congregation,  but  they  offer  a  very  poor  field  for 
preaching  and  pastoral  work.  They  do  not  even  intro- 
duce themselves  to  the  pastors  to  whose  preaching  they 
listen.  When  they  become  a  little  ashamed  of  this  Sun- 
day bumming  at  one  church,  they  go  to  another.  The 
sexton  knows  them  at  last,  and  understands  exactly  what 
they  are  and  what  they  are  doing.  A  little  self-denial 
would  give  all  these  people  the  right  to  a  pew,  and  save 
them  from  the  meanness  of  appropriating  that  which 
honest  people  are  obliged  to  pay  for. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  better  calculated  to 
bring  dry-rot  into  character  than  this  Sunday  bumming. 
To  go  week  after  week  to  church,  assuming  no  responsi- 
bility, paying  for  no  privilege,  and  taking  no  part  what- 
ever except  that  of  a  thief  or  sponge,  can  have  no  influ- 
ence better  than  that  of  unfitting  a  man  for  society.  He 
v.ho  is  not  one  of  God's  poor  has  no  right  to  privileges 
that  he  does  not  pay  for,  in  or  out  of  the  church,  and 
the  man  who  becomes  willing  to  avail  himself  of  the 
generosity  of  others,  in  order  that  he  may  spend  more 
upon  his  artificial  wants,  becomes  a  pauper  at  heart  and 
a  thief  in  fact. 


Religion  and  the  Church.  55 

The  great  majority  of  Sunday  bummers  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  themselves,  for  even  their  church-going  very 
often  grows  out  of  their  love  of  rcspectabiHty  and  of  the 
usages  of  respectable  society.  But  the  young,  and  par- 
ticularly young  men,  should  be  warned  against  the  prac- 
tice. The  Sunday  bummer  is  nearly  always  the  occu- 
pant of  a  boarding-house,  a  fact  which  at  least  partly 
accounts  for  his  demoralization.  We  do  not  think  it 
often  happens  that  the  occupant  of  a  genuine  home 
steals  his  preaching.  All  sorts  of  moral  obliquities  and 
social  loosenesses  are  generated  in  boarding-houses — 
and  Sunday  bumming  among  the  rest.  A  man  without  a 
home  is  a  pretty  poor  member  of  society,  as  a  rule.  It 
is  not  apt  to  occur  to  him  that  he  has  any  stake  or  any 
duty  in  society,  so  he  takes  what  society  gives  him,  and 
avails  himself  of  the  privilege  of  squatting  upon  the  rest. 
Young  men  coming  to  the  city  to  live — for  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Sunday  bummer  is  peculiarly  the 
product  of  the  city — should  by  all  means  avoid  a  habit 
which  will  always  tell  against  them.  The  first  thing  a 
young  man  starting  out  into  independent  life  should  do 
is  to  take  squarely  upon  his  shoulders  the  social  burdens 
that  belong  to  him.  The  policy  breeds  manliness  and 
self-respect  and  will  remove  him  from  all  liability  to  be- 
come the  poor  creature  known  as  the  Sunday  bummer. 

"The  Machine"  in  New  England. 
There  is  a  thrifty  manufacturing  village,  about  five 
miles  from  Springfield,  in  Massachusetts,  called  Indian 
Orchard,  and  there  is  a  Congregational  church  there, 
which,  some  years  since,  called  to  be  its  pastor  the  Rev. 
James  F.  Merriani,  the  son  of  an  excellent  orthodox 
deacon  in  Doctor  Buckingham's  church  in  Springfield. 
The  church  had  known  the  young  man  from  his  youth 
up — known  his  history,  his  opinions,  his  infiuence.     He 


56  Every-Day    Topics. 

had  already  had  one  settlement  in  the  town  of  Farming- 
ton,  Connecticut,  where  he  had  been  much  beloved. 
Mr.  Merriam  accepted  the  call  of  the  Indian  Orchard 
church,  and  a  council  of  Congregational  ministers  was 
called  together  to  go  through  the  formalities  of  installa- 
tion. It  so  happened,  however,  that  the  young  man  was 
an  independent  thinker,  and  could  not  state  his  ortho- 
doxy exactly  in  terms  satisfactory  to  the  council,  and 
that  he  was  "  shaky  "  on  the  dogma  of  everlasting  pun- 
ishment. So  far  as  we  are  able  to  learn,  the  only  other 
point  of  doubtful  orthodoxy  related  to  the  atonement, 
and  the  following  are  Mr.  Merriam's  own  words  as  to 
this  :  "  While  we  may  differ  as  to  philosophical  state- 
ments of  it,  I  believe  I  am  at  one  with  our  accepted  in- 
terpretation as  to  the  tottom  truth,  viz.:  that  God  in 
Christ's  death,  suffered  in  his  own  divine  nature  for  us, 
and  that  it  signified  God's  free  forgiveness  to  the  repent- 
ant of  their  sins." 

Well,  the  council  voted  eight  to  six,  not  to  install  the 
candidate — mainly,  we  understand,  because  he  was  not 
sound  on  the  subject  of  everlasting  punishment.  Six  ©f 
the  fourteen  indicated  by  their  votes  either  that,  in  their 
opinion,  he  was  sound,  or  that  his  opinions  concerning 
that  dogma  were  not  such  as  would  interfere  with  his 
usefulness  as  a  pastor  and  religious  teacher.  The  coun- 
cil dissolved,  having  done  what  it  could  to  shut  the  can- 
didate's mouth  and  deprive  the  people  of  Indian  Orchard 
of  the  pastor  of  their  choice.  Then  the  people,  spurn- 
ing the  action  of  the  council,  engaged  Mr.  Merriam  to 
supply  their  pulpit,  and  to  become  in  all  respects  their 
pastor  and  teacher  ;  and  he,  like  a  sensible  man,  ac- 
cepted their  invitation,  protesting  that  there  should  be 
neither  ill-feeling  nor  ill-speaking  against  the  council 
which,  he  did  not  doubt,  had  performed  its  work  most 
conscientiously.     And  it  is  noteworthy  just  here  that  the 


Religion  and  the  Church.  57 

pastor  and  delegate  from  Farmington,  the  seat  of  Mr. 
Merriam's  former  pastorate,  voted  for  his  settlement. 
The  result  of  the  action  of  the  council  has  been  the 
welding  of  all  hearts  in  Indian  Orchard  into  one  for  the 
support  of  Mr.  Merriam,  the  increase  of  his  influence,  and 
the  production  of  a  local  excitement  and  discussion,  the 
results  of  which  will  not  be  reckoned  up  in  many  years. 

We  have  noticed  this  case  simply  because  it  is  an  in- 
structive indication  of  the  drift  of  the  times.  It  indi- 
cates : 

First. — That  "  the  machine  "  is  no  longer  identical 
with  the  church.  The  machine  docs  its  work  in  the 
regular  way,  and  the  church  repudiates  it,  tramples  on 
it,  tears  up  its  decisions  and  throws  them  away. 

Second. — That  the  machine  itself  is  undergoing  a  pro- 
cess of  disorganization.  The  vote  in  the  council  needed 
but  one  change  to  make  it  a  tie,  and  but  two  changes  to 
reverse  the  decision.  Out  of  fourteen  persons,  six  either 
harmonized  with  Mr.  Merriam's  views,  or  did  not  con- 
sider them  of  importance  as  hinderances  to  his  useful- 
ness. This  is  a  tremendous  change  from  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  fathers,  and  shows  very  plainly  that  the  orthodox 
creeds  are  in  the  future  to  have  a  more  liberal  interpre- 
tation, or  that  there  will  soon  come,  as  a  necessity,  a  re- 
statement in  a  briefer  or  a  materially  modified  form  of 
the  doctrines  that  make  up  the  common  opinion  of  the 
orthodox  churches  of  the  country.  Our  own  judgment  is 
that  the  votes  given  for  Mr.  Merriam  were  little  else  than 
demands  for  greater  personal  liberty  in  the  interpretation 
of  a  creed.  There  must  be  this  liberty  if  men  are  going 
to  think  at  all,  or  else  there  must  be  self-stultification. 

Third. — That  the  action  of  the  church  at  Indian  Or- 
chard, and  the  astonishingly  wide  and  earnest  sympathy 
with  it  manifested  by  the  churches  in  the  vicinity,  are 
proofs  that  dogmatic  theology  is  losing  its  old  hold  upon 


58  Every- Day   Topics. 

the  popular  mind.  The  people  are  in.  advance  of  the 
clergy  in  perceiving  that  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  the 
heart  filled  with  love  and  good-will  and  the  life  with  un- 
selfishness and  purity,  are  of  very  much  more  impor- 
tance than  opinions  and  speculations  upon  the  doctrine 
of  everlasting  punishment.  To  turn  such  a  man  as  Mr. 
Merriam  is  universally  conceded  to  be  away  from  a  field 
of  usefulness,  where  his  Christian  spirit  and  sunny  temper 
and  helpful  counsels  and  ardent  love  of  men  might  be 
of  the  greatest  use  in  helping  souls  to  heaven,  because 
he  did  not  believe  in  the  same  sort  of  a  hell  that  the 
council  believed  in,  is  not  recognized  by  the  churches  as 
a  wise — we  had  almost  said  a  decent — thing  to  do. 

We  have  seen  nothing  more  hopeful  in  these  later 
times  than  the  result  of  this  Indian  Orchard  business. 
It  is  not  only  a  triumph  of  Christian  liberty  for  to-day, 
but  it  amounts  to  a  declaration  that  there  is  to  be  more 
liberty  in  the  future.  It  amounts,  too,  to  a  declaration 
that  the  religion  of  the  head  is  losing  its  prominence  in 
the  religion  of  the  churches.  We  are  lamenting  almost 
every  week  the  fall  of  some  man  from  a  high  position  in 
the  church,  and  we  are  beginning  to  find  out  what  it 
means.  We  are  beginning  to  learn  that  any  form  of  or- 
ganized Christianity  which  makes  much  of  faith  and  little 
of  works — especially  when  that  faith  is  made  to  cover 
long  strings  of  dogmatic  statements — which  insists  rig- 
idly on  the  possession  of  sound  opinions  and  takes  small 
note  of  an  unsound  heart,  which  discards  ministers  for 
heresy  and  hastens  to  cover  up  ministerial  failures  in 
morality  and  charity,  which  plants  itself  in  the  way  of  a 
true  man  because  he  cannot  as  a  true  man  pronounce  its 
shibboleth — we  say  that  we  are  beginning  to  learn  that 
any  form  of  organized  Christianity  which  does  all  this, 
just  as  naturally  produces  untrustworthy  Christians  as 
the  earth  produces  weeds.     Why  should  it  not  ? 


Religion  and  the  Church.  59 

Let  the  concluding  paragraph  of  Mr.  Merriam's  ex- 
position of  his  faith,  made  before  the  Indian  Orchard 
council  be  ours.     He  says  : 

"  In  conclusion,  I  would  add  that  I  believe  Christianity  has  as 
yet  made  but  a  beginning  of  the  great  work  it  is  to  do.  I  antici- 
pate a  speedy  and  wonderful  development  ;  because  as  the  race 
grows  intellectually  and  morally,  so  do  its  conceptions  of  Christ 
and  the  priceless  import  of  his  teaching  become  more  adequate. 
I  not  only  believe  in,  but  most  urgently  advocate,  a  constant  re- 
currence to  him  in  all  our  work  as  churches  to  learn  what  our 
God  is,  and  what  our  life  here  should  be — and  may  be.  When 
the  church  fully  apprehends  the  tremendous  power  of  the  truths 
concerning  Christ  it  upholds — when  it  is  great  enough,  good 
enough,  to  wield  its  own  weapon — I  believe  the  progress  of  its 
redeeming  work  will  be  accelerated  a  hundred-fold." 

Thp:  Talk  about  Retribution. 

We  have  just  passed  through,  or  we  are  now  passing 
through,  one  of  the  most  disgusting  episodes  in  relig- 
ious discussion  that  this  country  has  ever  witnessed.  Its 
distinguishing  characteristics  have  been  irreverence  and 
vulgarity.  A  modest  pastor  in  Massachusetts  was  de- 
nied the  pulpit  to  which  he  had  been  elected,  on  account 
of  his  failure  to  indorse  the  old  orthodox  dogma,  con- 
cerning everlasting  punishment.  The  council  that  took 
the  responsibility  of  this  proscription  will  live  long 
enough,  we  hope,  to  see  that  it  did  a  bad  thing  for  itself, 
for  the  public,  and  for  Christianity.  The  legitimate  dis- 
cussion that  grew  out  of  this  event,  we  have  no  fault  to 
find  witli.  It  was  needed,  and  it  will  not  fail  to  have  a 
good  result.  It  was  a  matter  that  specially  concerned 
the  Christian  world,  and  one  that  ought  to  have  been 
discussed  with  the  modesty  and  dignity  wliich  should  dis- 
tinguisli  all  treatment  of  the  solemn  questions  that  touch 
man's  immortality. 

How  was  it  treated  ?     Precisely  as  if  it  were  a  question 


6o  Every-Day   Topics. 

of  politics  and  partisanship, — it  was  put  to  vote  !  In  the 
same  spirit  with  which  a  train  of  passengers  is  canvassed 
on  the  eve  of  a  great  election,  the  newspaper  press  in- 
terviewed the  neighboring  ministers  to  see  how  they 
stood  on  the  question  of  "  hell,"  and  to  learn  how  they 
should  have  voted  had  they  been  members  of  the  coun- 
cil whose  action  had  started  the  discussion.  We  can 
imagine  reporters  doing  just  this,  for  "  'tis  their  nature 
to  " — do  just  this.  We  do  not  know  of  any  inquiry  at 
which  they  would  hesitate,  if  its  answer  would  add 
piquancy  to  their  contributions  ;  but,  while  we  have  no 
sympathy  with  this  sort  of  enterprise,  we  spare  our  con- 
demnation of  it  in  the  presence  of  the  fact  that  ministers 
in  large  numbers  responded  to  their  inquiries,  with  just 
as  much  apparent  readiness  as  if  the  question  had  re- 
lated only  to  the  Bland  silver  bill,  or  any  other  political 
measure  or  matter.  If  irreverence  and  vulgarity  can  go 
further  than  this,  we  have  no  idea  in  what  direction  they 
would  travel.  For  ministers  to  consent  to  form  an  out- 
side council,  and  have  their  votes  recorded  by  the  public 
press  on  any  special  question  that  one  of  their  own  regu- 
larly constituted  councils  had  decided,  would  have  been 
a  grave  discourtesy,  to  say  the  least.  To  "stand  and  be 
counted"  by  a  newspaper  reporter,  while  they  voted  on 
the  subject  of  everlasting  punishment,  was  a  surrender 
of  their  self-respect,  a  degradation  of  their  office  and 
position,  and  a  fatal  vulgarizing  of  the  whole  question,  of 
which  every  man  among  them  ought  to  be  profoundly 
ashamed. 

When  a  question  gets  down  as  low  as  this,  it  is  of 
course  the  privilege  of  every  blackguard  to  besmirch  it 
with  his  own  style  of  handling.  Colonel  IngersoU,  an 
open  unbeliever, — especially  about  the  mouth, — has  had 
liis  tilt  at  it.  His  words  were  diligently  reported,  and 
so  loudly  and  persistently  hawked  about  the  streets  by 


Religion  and  the  Church.  6i 

newsboys,  that  "  Colonel  IngersoU  "  and  "  hell"  will  for- 
ever be  associated  in  the  public  mind. 

The  result  of  vulgarizing  this  question,  in  this  way,  is 
about  as  bad  as  it  can  be.  No  one,  we  suppose,  will 
deny  that  it  is  to  reduce  it  to  one  of  very  little  moment. 
A  question  on  which  men  divide  as  partisans — a  ques- 
tion which  is  decided  by  votes  and  not  by  arguments — a 
question  which  ostensibly  rests  in  men's  opinions,  and 
is  kicked  about  by  the  lowest  orators  and  the  lowest  pro- 
cesses— is  one  that  soon  becomes  deprived  of  its  impor- 
tance ;  and  men  who  trembled  in  the  prospect  of  endless 
suffering  as  the  consequence  of  sin,  cease,  at  last,  to  be- 
lieve in  retribution  altogether.  No  greater  misfortune 
could  happen  to  the  world  than  this,  for,  if  there  is  one 
thing  in  which  revelation,  science,  and  experience 
thoroughly  agree,  it  is  in  the  doctrine  that  suffering  is, 
and  must  forever  be,  the  consequence  of  sin.  A  man 
must  trample  on  his  own  common-sense  before  he  can 
believe  that  if  he  falls  asleep  in  this  world  an  impure, 
vicious,  malignant  man,  he  will  wake  up  in  the  next  a 
saint  in  heaven.  To  lose  the  idea  of  retribution  is  to 
lose  the  idea  that  holds  the  moral  world  in  equipoise. 
To  make  God  so  tender  and  loving  that  without  repent- 
ance and  reformation  He  will  "  clear  the  guilty,"  is  to 
degrade  Him  beneath  human  contempt.  It  blots  out 
the  sense  of  justice  ;  it  transforms  crime  into  a  mistake  ; 
it  makes  nothing  of  that  which  has  filled  this  world 
with  misery,  and  that  which  will  fill  any  world  with 
misery,  so  long  as  it  may  be  persisted  in.  As  long  as 
consequence  follows  cause,  just  so  long  will  retribution 
follow  sin,  whether  in  this  world  or  the  next  ;  and  to 
blot  out  the  belief  in  retril:)ution  in  any  man's  mind  is  to 
demoralize  and  debauch  him. 

Of  the  more  dignified  discussions  of  the  question  of 
everlasting    punishment,    it    is   proper    to    say   a    word. 


62  Every-Day   Topics. 

That  there  is  a  considerable  number  of  orthodox  minis^ 
tors  who  have  given  up,  or  are  giving  up  their  behef  in 
this  dogma,  there  is  no  question.  The  loosening  hold 
upon  it  has  been  evident  for  many  years.  Endless  tor- 
ment has  been  talked  very  little  about  in  American  and 
English  pulpits  for  the  last  decade,  and  is  rarely,  except 
in  a  general  way,  presented  as  a  motive  to  a  religious 
life.  The  Indian  Orchard  minister  has  a  multitude  of 
sympathizers  among  his  professional  brethren,  and  the 
number  is  growing  larger  rather  than  smaller.  The 
change  comes  partly  of  a  change  of  views  of  the  charac- 
ter of  God,  partly  of  a  change  of  ideas  concerning  the 
office  of  punishment,  and  partly  of  new  and  better  in- 
terpretations of  Scripture.  Such  men  as  Canon  Farrar 
and  Rev.  Dr.  Whiton — eminent  alike  as  orthodox  Chris- 
tians and  scholars — have  had  a  great  deal  of  influence 
on  the  professional  mind  of  the  day,  in  determining  that 
phase  of  the  question  which  scholarship  can  alone  de- 
termine, viz.,  that  which  depends  upon  the  exact  inter- 
pretation of  all  that  the  sacred  writings  have  to  say  upon 
it.  Dr.  Whiton's  little  book  has  made,  and  is  making, 
a  profound  impression  ;  and  so  important  is  it  deemed 
by  some  of  those  who  have  read  it,  that  money  has  been 
freely  put  into  his  hand  for  its  distribution. 

If  there  is  to  be  a  future  life — and  this  is  the  faith  of 
Christendom  and  heathendom — it  goes  without  saying 
that  there  is  to  be  retribution  in  it  ;  but,  as  we  have 
read  Dr.  Whiton's  book,  there  is  no  declaration  in 
Scripture  that  the  punishment  is  to  be  endless— and  no 
declaration  that  it  is  not  to  be.  The  book  is  quite 
worthy  of  any  man's  reading,  and  we  commend  it  par- 
ticularly to  those  whose  votes  have  been  canvassed  by 
the  reporters.  If  they  have  not  already  perused  it,  they 
will  learn  that  they  voted  before  they  had  all  the  light 
there  was  to  be  had  upon  the  subject. 


ART. 

American  Art. 

ONE  of  the  most  notable  facts  connected  with  the 
Centennial  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia  was  the  uni- 
versal devotion  to  the  art  galleries.  Every  day  testified 
of  it,  and  every  writer  spoke  of  it.  Whatever  portion 
of  the  superb  show  was  neglected,  or  only  thinly  at- 
tended, the  art  galleries  were  always  full.  However 
rapidly  other  departments  may  have  been  skimmed 
over,  here  the  crowd  lingered.  It  is  the  universal  testi- 
mony, also,  that  this  part  of  the  exhibition  was  not  in 
any  way  what  could  be  desired.  No  country  but  Eng- 
land made  an  attempt  to  show  its  best  things.  Every- 
where, outside  of  the  English  pictures,  respectable 
mediocrity  was  the  rule,  and  commanding  excellence 
the  exception.  Still,  it  was  there,  among  the  pictures 
and  the  statuary,  that  the  great  masses  of  visitors  found 
their  highest  satisfactions,  and  the  return  for  their  fees 
of  admission. 

To  those  who  have  spent  many  days  in  the  London 
National  Gallery,  in  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre,  in  tlie 
halls  of  Dresden,  in  the  palaces  of  Florence,  and  among 
the  exhauslless  art-treasures  of  Rome,  the  exhibition  at 
Philadelphia  could  have  only  a  subordinate  interest. 
The  poverty  and  the  contrast  seemed  great,  and,  to  an 
extent,  painful ;  but  to  the  majority  of  visitors,  the  ex- 


64  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

hibition  was  the  first  of  any  magnitude  they  had  ever 
seen.  It  was  to  them  a  superlative  dehght — a  revelation 
of  achievements,  the  possibility  of  which  they  had  never 
conceived.  The  wonders  of  the  Main  Building,  of  Ma- 
chinery Hall,  and  of  the  minor  collections,  were  all  sub- 
ordinate to  those  of  the  finer  arts.  ,The  pictures  formed 
the  central,  dominant  point  of  attraction  every  day, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end. 

Now,  these  facts  mean  a  great  deal  with  relation  to 
the  future  of  art  in  this  country.  They  mean  that  there 
is  an  innate  love  of  art — of  the  beautiful  in  picture  and 
sculpture — in  the  average  American,  from  which  it  only 
needs  time  and  opportunity  to  reap  grand  harvests  of 
achievement  and  appreciation.  We  can  now  perfectly 
understand  Mr.  Archer's  statement,  to  which  we  have 
previously  alluded  in  these  columns,  with  regard  to  the 
effect  upon  English  art  and  the  English  mind  of  the  Lon- 
don Exhibition  of  185 1.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he 
attributed  the  great  progress  of  art  in  that  country  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty-five  years  to  that  exhibition.  The 
people  went  to  studying  art  at  once,  so  that  art  schools 
were  multiplied  throughout  the  realm  almost  a  hundred- 
fold. It  is  owing  to  that  exhibition  that  England  has 
been  able  to  show  us  so  much  that  is  satisfactory  at 
Philadelphia.  Like  causes,  under  like  conditions,  pro- 
duce like  results  ;  and  we  look  forward  upon  the  next 
quarter  of  a  century  to  the  only  general  movement  in 
art  that  our  young  country  has  ever  known.  We  are 
ready  for  it,  and  stimulus  and  direction  have  come  just 
when  we  need  it.  Hitherto,  our  art  has  been  desultory, 
patchy,  and  partial.  The  absence  of  life-schools  has 
driven  our  artists  all  to  landscape,  or  sent  them  abroad 
and  kept  them  there.  Figure-painting  by  artists  who 
have  always  lived  in  America  is  almost  unknown.  For 
the  growth  of  illustrated  literature  in  this  country,  it  has 


Art.  6$ 

been  next  to  impossible  to  find  competent  figure  artists 
to  draw  upon  the  block.  So  this  is  one  of  the  good  re- 
sults for  which  we  confidently  look — a  general  develop- 
ment of  art  throughout  the  country,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  art  schools  of  real  excellence  in  all  the  American 
cities. 

There  must  infallibly  come,  with  the  universal  culti- 
vation of  art  and  the  nourishment  of  the  art  feeling,  a 
change  in  our  industries,  or,  rather,  a  very  broad  en- 
largement of  them.  We  are  now  manufacturers  of  hats, 
shoes,  cotton  cloth,  iron,  woollens,  and  a  limited 
amount  of  silks  for  service — of  sewings  more  partic- 
ularly. We  can  build  ships,  too,  with  sufficient  motive, 
and  machinery  of  all  sorts,  from  a  Waltham  watch  to 
the  largest  steam-engine  ;  but  of  beautiful  things  we 
make  very  few,  and  these  mainly  in  imitation  of  those 
which  we  import.  Now,  there  is  nothing  in  our  national 
economy  so  desirable  as  the  diversification  of  our  indus- 
try. We  see  what  other  nations  have  done  in  the  exhi- 
bition of  the  Main  Building,  and  by  trying  hard  we  could 
probably  imitate  the  products  which  so  arouse  our  ad- 
miration. That,  precisely,  is  what  we  do  not  want  to 
do.  That  would  never  help  us,  except  temporarily  and 
in  a  mean  way.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  the  people 
themselves,  by  a  sort  of  blind  instinct,  have  plunged  to 
the  bottom  of  the  secret.  There  must  be  a  cultivation 
of  art  from  the  beginning — there  must  be  education  in 
the  perception  and  delineation  of  forms  and  the  combi- 
nation of  colors,  before  we  can  hope  to  do  any  original 
work  in  the  way  of  making  our  own  beautiful  things. 
Our  foreign  cousins  would  send  us  new  forms  while  we 
were  imitating  their  old  ones — new  forms  conceived  in 
a  fundamental  knowledge  of  art  to  which  we  could  lay 
no  claim. 

So,  at  the  very  basis  of  all  the  beautiful  industries  that 


66  Every-Day   Topics. 

are  so  desirable  to  us  as  a  nation,  there  must  be  laid  a 
popular  knowledge  of  art.  We  must  have  drawing  com- 
petently taught  in  our  common  schools,  everywhere. 
We  must  have  art  schools  for  those  who  in  the  common 
schools  have  shown  special  gifts  and  adaptations  for  art. 
Thus,  by  beginning  at  the  bottom,  all  those  industries 
which  involve  the  fine  art  element  will  naturally  grow 
up  among  us,  based  upon  our  own  designs.  In  truth, 
there  is  no  other  ground  upon  which  these  very  desir- 
able industries  can  be  established  ;  and  we  beg  the 
American  people  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  cultiva- 
tion of  art  is  to  result  in  something  far  beyond  the  pic- 
ture that  hangs  on  the  wall,  and  the  statue  that  fills  the 
niche — it  is  to  result  in  the  profitable  employment  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  in  producing 
articles  of  ornament  which  we  now  import.  Universal 
art  cultivation  is  the  soil  from  which  will  naturally  and 
inevitably  spring  a  thousand  interests  and  industries 
that  will  minister  to  American  prosperity,  comfort,  lux- 
ury, and  refinement. 

If  any  of  our  readers  should  ask  us  what  we  mean  by 
this — what  industries  would  be  developed  by  the  general 
cultivation  of  art — we  have  simply  to  refer  him  to  the 
dinner-service  from  which  he  takes  his  food,  after  read- 
ing this  article.  There  are  ninety-nine  chances  in  a 
hundred  that  it  came  from  China  or  Europe  ;  and  we 
have  simply  to  say  that  in  either  case  there  is  no  gen- 
eral knowledge  of  art  in  this  country  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce the  decorations  upon  it.  If  it  is  French,  and  ex- 
pensive, American  art  has  no  more  power  to  produce  it 
than  it  has  to  produce  the  Chinese.  We  do  not  know 
enough  to  make  these  decorations,  and  if  we  could  suc- 
ceed in  a  clumsy  imitation  of  them,  we  could  design 
nothing  new.  This  is  an  illustration  simply.  Our  tables, 
our  rooms,  our  wardrobes,  abound  in  articles  which  we 


Art.  67 

ought  to  make  ourselves,  but  which  we  never  can  make 
until,  by  thorough  instruction  and  patient  practice,  a 
great  multitude  of  American  men  and  women  have  be- 
come artists.  It  is  this  which  gives  the  highest  practi- 
cal significance  to  the  art  exhibition  at  Philadelphia, 
and  makes  the  public  interest  in  it  an  era  in  the  national 
life  and  development.  To  us  it  is  the  most  hopeful  and 
promising  of  all  the  possible  results  of  the  Great  Exhibi- 
tion. 

Art  Criticism. 

Art  criticism,  in  this  country,  has  reached  about  as 
low  a  level  as  it  can  find,  without  becoming  execrable. 
It  is  so  at  war  with  itself,  that  it  has  ceased  to  have  any 
authority ;  and  so  capricious,  and  so  apparently  under 
the  influence  of  unworthy  motives,  that  it  has  become 
contemptible.  We  may  instance  the  late  exhibition  of 
water-colors  in  this  city,  and  the  kind  and  variety  of  crit- 
icism it  called  forth,  as  an  iUustration  of  what  we  mean. 
It  has  been  absolutely  impossible  for  the  public  to  get 
any  adequate  idea  of  this  exhibition  through  the  revela- 
tions and  discussions  of  the  public  press.  What  one 
man  has  praised  without  stint,  another  has  condemned 
without  mercy.  All  sorts  of  theories  and  comments  and 
considerations  have  been  offered,  and  if  the  public  mind 
is  not  in  a  muddle  over  the  whole  matter,  it  is  not  the 
fault  of  the  men  who  have  written  about  it. 

Now  there  are  just  two  objects  that  furnish  an  apology 
for  a  man  to  publish  his  opinions  on  an  art  exhibition, 
viz.,  the  information  of  the  public,  and  the  improvement 
of  the  artists.  Of  course,  it  is  an  impertinence  for  any 
man  to  assume  the  rcMe  of  the  art  critic  who  does  not 
understand  what  he  is  talking  about,  and  who  is  not  free 
enough  from  partisanships  and  hobbies  to  write  with 
candor.     The  great  end  of  criticism  is  popular  and  pro- 


68  Every-Day   Topics. 

fessional  improvement,  and  in  order  that  this  double  end 
may  be  secured,  there  must  be  popular  and  professional 
confidence  in  the  sources  of  the  criticism.  We  believe 
it  to  be  notorious  that,  among  the  painters  of  New  York, 
there  is  not  a  particle  of  confidence  in  the  critics  who 
write  upon  art.  They  do  not,  in  any  instance,  expect  to 
be  fairly  and  ably  treated.  They  have  no  faith  in  the 
competency  of  the  newspaper  writers  on  art  to  teach 
them.  They  have  no  faith  in  their  candor.  When  they 
put  up  a  picture  for  exhibition,  they  regard  the  whole 
matter  of  newspaper  notice  as  a  chance  in  a  lottery. 
They  are  thankful  if  somebody  praises  it,  and  if  nobody 
abuses  it,  because  that  will  help  to  sell  it,  but  beyond 
that  they  have  no  interest.  They  do  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  acknowledge  the  competency  of  these  writers  to 
teach  them,  and  they  have  the  utmost  contempt  for  their 
general  theories  and  their  special  judgments.  Under 
these  circumstances,  one  of  the  principal  offices  of  crit- 
icism is  rendered  useless. 

The  public  has  come  to  pretty  much  the  same  con- 
clusion as  the  painters.  They  have  learned  that  these 
writers  have  no  guiding  principles,  that  they  agree  in 
nothing,  and  that  each  man  writes  from  the  stand-point 
of  his  own  private  tastes,  or  his  own  private  prejudices 
and  partisanships.  They  find  the  pictures  of  a  certain 
man  condemned  as  utter  and  irredeemable  failures,  and 
they  go  to  see  the  failures,  finding  them  the  best  pictures 
in  the  exhibition.  They  find  the  pictures  of  another  man 
praised  as  profoundly  worthy,  and  they  go  to  see  them, 
and  find  them  unconscionable  daubs  that  would  disgrace 
the  walls  of  any  parlor  in  New  York — really,  for  any 
pleasure -giving  power  that  they  possess,  not  worth  the 
white  paper  they  have  spoiled.  Moreover,  what  one 
critic  praises  another  one  condemns,  and  vice  versa. 
Indeed,  there  are  some  men  among  these  writers  whose 


Art.  69 

judgments  have  been  so  capricious,  and  whimsical,  and 
unfair,  and  so  notoriously  fallacious,  that  their  praise  of 
a  picture  arouses  suspicions  against  it  and  really  damages 
its  market  value. 

Now  criticism,  to  be  valuable,  must  be  based  in  prin- 
ciple. If  there  are  any  such  things  as  sound  principles 
of  art,  gentlemen,  show  them  to  us,  and  show  us  your 
judgments  based  upon  them.  Agree  among  yourselves. 
We,  the  people,  don't  care  for  your  private  tastes  and 
notions.  We  care  a  great  deal  more  about  our  own. 
We  arc  not  at  all  interested  in  yours.  What  wc  want 
of  you  is  instruction  in  sound  principles  of  art,  which 
will  enable  us  to  form  judgments  and  to  understand  the 
basis  of  yours.  Your  prejudices,  and  piques,  and  whims 
are  not  of  the  slightest  value  to  anybody,  and  your  pub- 
lication of  them  is  a  presumptuous  and  impertinent  per- 
formance, growing  more  and  more  presumptuous  and 
impertinent  every  year,  while  the  people  are  growing 
rapidly  more  competent  to  judge  of  these  matters  for 
themselves. 

In  the  present  jumble  of  art  criticism  in  this  country, 
consisting  of  great  contrariety  of  sentiment  and  opinion, 
much  injustice  is  necessarily  done  to  artists  and  schools 
of  artists  ;  and  injustice,  meted  out  in  the  unsparing 
doses  that  are  often  indulged  in,  is  a  poison  that  greatly 
injures  all  who  receive  it.  It  takes  immense  pluck  and 
strong  individuality  to  stand  up  against  it.  There  are 
some  painters  who  possess  these  qualities,  but  not  many, 
so  that  the  consciousness  of  unjust  treatment  at  the 
hands  of  public  criticism  is  a  ])ositivc  damage  to  them 
and  their  art.  There  have  been  cruellies  and  discour- 
tesies indulged  in  which  only  a  raw-hide  could  properly 
punish,  and  for  which  there  was  no  valid  excuse  and 
whose  only  influence  was  bad. 

Wc  are  urowintr  in  this  countrv  in  all  that  relates  ty 


/O  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

art,  except  in  this  matter  of  art  criticism.  People  are 
becoming  educated  in  art,  and  a  new  spirit  seems  to 
have  taken  possession  of  the  American  people.  Let  us 
hope  that  those  who  undertake  to  guide  the  public  judg- 
ment may  meet  the  new  requirements  of  the  day  by  a 
most  decided  improvement  among  themselves,  so  that 
we  may  have  something  more  valuable  from  them  than 
the  airing  of  pet  notions  and  a  public  show  of  their  sym- 
pathies and  antipathies. 

Greatness  in  Art. 
It  is  interesting  to  notice  what  passes  for  greatness  in 
art  with  the  average  man,  not  to  say  the  average  critic. 
If  we  were  to  ask  him  to  name  the  half  dozen  greatest 
actors  this  country  possesses,  he  would  not  omit  from 
his  enumeration  certain  names  that  by  no  just  rule  of 
judgment  can  lay  claim  to  greatness.  We  allude  to 
those  actors  who  have  become  notorious,  or  famous,  or 
exceedingly  admired,  for  their  power  to  represent  a  sin- 
gle character.  Now,  this  power  to  represent  a  single 
character,  and  only  a  single  character,  superlatively  well, 
is  a  mark  of  littleness  and  not  of  greatness.  The  man 
who  can  only  make  his  mark  in  a  single  part,  shows  that 
he  is  not  an  actor — shows  that  the  part  is  purposely  or 
accidentally  shaped  to  him,  and  that  it  is  a  harmonious 
outcome  of  his  individuality.  He  has  simply  to  act  him- 
self to  act  his  part  well,  and  that  is  not  acting  at  all. 
As  a  rule,  the  men  who  make  the  most  money  in  the  his- 
trionic art,  and  pass  for  the  greatest  actors  with  the  peo- 
ple, are  in  no  true  sense  of  the  word  actors  at  all.  The 
great  actor  is  the  man  who  can  play  every  part,  and  any 
part — who  can  successfully  go  out  of  himself  into  the 
impersonation  of  a  wide  range  of  characters.  Nature, 
of  course,  places  limitations  upon  every  man,  so  that 
no  man  can  be   equally  great  in  all   parts  ;   but  he  cer- 


Art.  71 

tainly  is  the  greatest  actor  who  can  be  great  in  the  largest 
number  of  parts.  There  are  several  men  and  women 
upon  the  contemporary  stage,  enjoying  its  highest  honors 
and  emoluments,  who  have  hardly  a  valid  claim  to  the 
name  of  actors.  The  "  starring  system  "  naturally  pro- 
duces just  such  artists  as  these,  and  we  suppose  it  always 
will. 

Twenty  years  ago  the  American  passing  through  Flor- 
ence did  not  consider  a  visit  to  that  city  complete,  un- 
less he  had  had  an  interview  with  "  the  great  American 
sculptor,"  Hiram  Powers  ;  but  it  seems  that  Mr.  Powers' 
immortality  is  to  be  a  very  mild  and  modest  one.  He 
has  passed  away,  leaving  a  delightful  personal  memory  ; 
but  it  somehow  happens  that  what  he  has  left  behind 
him  in  imperishable  stone  does  not,  in  the  light  of  these 
later  days,  confirm  the  early  opinions  of  his  greatness. 
He  has  never  made  a  group.  He  spent  his  life  on  ideal 
heads,  single  ideal  forms,  and  portrait  busts.  His  pupil, 
Conolly,  was  making  groups  within  five  years  of  the  be- 
ginning of  his  study — could  not  be  restrained  from 
making  groups.  Powers  could  not  have  failed  to  sec 
that  his  pupil  was  greater  than  himself — more  dramatic, 
more  inventive,  more  constructive — every  way  broader 
in  his  power.  The  elements  of  true  greatness  were  in 
the  younger  man,  and  were  not  in  the  older  man. 

What  we  say  of  these  two  men  will  serve  to  illustrate 
the  truths  we  would  like  to  present  concerning  greatness 
in  all  plastic  and  pictorial  art.  Many  of  our  painters 
who  have  great  reputations  are  petty  men.  They  know 
something  of  a  specialty,  can  do  something  creditable 
in  it.  and  can  do  absolutely  nothing  out  of  it.  They 
have  no  universality  of  knowledge  or  of  skill.  They  can 
do  just  one  thing,  and  they  continue  to  do  that  one  thing 
so  long  that  they  take  on  a  mannerism  of  subject  and  of 
treatment,  so   well   learned   by   the    public,  at  last,  that 


72  Every -Day   Topics. 

their  pictures  are  their  autographs.  Unless  AmeriL-n 
can  get  out  of  this  rut  in  some  way,  she  cannot  make 
great  progress.  Our  "great  painters"  are  our  Httlc 
painters — are  the  men  who  plod  along  in  a  narrow  path, 
seeing  nothing  and  attempting  nothing  in  the  wide  field 
that  opens  on  all  sides  of  them.  They  learn  to  do  one 
thing  well,  and  they  emphasize  that  one  thing  so  firmly, 
and  dogmatize  upon  it  so  loudly,  that  they  win  credit 
to  themselves  for  greatness,  when  their  work  is  the  cer- 
tificate of  their  littleness  and  narrowness. 

It  is  in  painting  and  sculpture  as  it  is  in  all  other  fields 
of  life  and  effort  —  the  wider  the  knowledge  and  the 
wider  the  practice,  the  better  the  skill  in  all  the  special- 
ties which  the  knowledge  and  practice  embrace.  Titian 
was  one  of  the  greatest  portrait  painters  that  ever  lived, 
and  he  was  a  much  better  portrait  painter  than  he  would 
otherwise  have  been  for  painting  such  works  as  "  The 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin."  The  great  embraces  the 
little.  The  universal  covers  all  details.  Our  painters 
stop  in  the  details,  and  seem  to  be  content  with  what 
they  get  or  suggest,  without  attempting  invention  and 
composition.  We  wish  it  could  be  understood  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  greatness  in  art  without  inven- 
tion and  composition.  There  are  three  great  names 
that  come  down  to  us,  accompanied  each  by  a  mighty 
charm  —  the  names  of  Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  and 
Leonardo  da  Vinci — and  while  that  of  Raphael  is  the 
best  beloved,  the  first  and  the  last  named  of  the  trio 
constantly  assert  themselves  as  the  greatest.  They  were 
simply  inventors  and  composers  of  higher  merit  and  a 
wider  range  of  powers  than  Raphael. 

We  know  that  we  live  in  a  day  not  particularly  favor- 
able to  the  development  of  great  art.  Men  must  paint 
to  sell,  and,  in  order  to  sell,  men  must  paint  for  their 
market.     Still,  we  believe  that  there  is  a  market  for  all 


Art.  73 

that  our  artists  can  produce,  that  is  truly  great.  This 
magazine  is  buying  invention  and  good  composition  con- 
stantly, and  \vc  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  two  vol- 
umes whicli  contain  in  any  year  the  issues  of  Scribticr's 
Monthly,  can  show  more  of  both  than  any  single  exhi- 
bition of  our  National  Academy  has  been  able  to  show 
since  the  magazine  began  its  existence.  The  pettiness 
of  our  art  is  its  curse,  and  we  emphasize  this  pettiness 
and  call  it  greatness.  What  we  want  is  more  invention 
— bringing  together  into  dramatic  relation  wider  ranges 
and  more  varied  masses  of  material.  We  may  get 
cleverness  this  side  of  invention  and  composition,  but 
greatness,  never. 

This  principle  runs  through  all  art.  Why  is  it  that 
American  poetry  has  asserted  so  small  a  place  in  the 
great  world  of  literature  ?  It  is  simply  because  it  is 
irredeemably  petty.  The  cutting  of  cameos  may  be 
done  by  men  who  are  capable  of  great  work,  but  it  is  not 
great  work  in  itself,  and  no  man  can  establish  a  claini 
to  greatness  upon  it.  The  writing  little  poems — ^jobs  of 
an  evening,  or  happy  half  hours  of  leisure — can  make 
no  man  a  great  poet.  Unless  a  man  use  this  kind  of 
■work  as  study  for  great  inventions  and  compositions,  and 
actually  go  on  and  compass  these  supreme  efforts  of  the 
poetic  art,  he  is  but  a  small  experimenter.  He  may  enjoy 
a  little  notoriety,  but  he  can  win  no  permanent  place 
in  art.  Shakspcre,  and  Milton,  and  Dante,  and  Goethe 
— the  kings  of  song — were  creators.  They  wrote  brief 
poems  of  great  beauty,  but  their  reputation  for  great- 
ness rests  entirely  on  their  Ijroad  poetic  inventions, 
which  embraced  a  great  variety  (if  ek'mcnls.  Tenny- 
son, Browning,  and  Swinburne,  of  the  luigiishmen  now 
wriling,  stand  above  the  great  mass  of  English  verse- 
writers,  or  \-crse-writers  in  llie  English  language,  be- 
cause the)'  are  more  tlian  clever  writers  of  brief  poems. 
'  4 


74  Every-Day   Topics. 

They  are  inventors,  composers,  creators.  They  have 
called  into  being  and  endowed  with  vitality  great  poetic 
organisms.  We  have  just  looked  over  a  new  volume  of 
American  verses,  which  presents  hardly  a  poem  to  the 
page.  There  is  not  the  first  sign  of  invention  in  it  from 
beginning  to  end,  yet  the  American  press  is  discussing 
the  place  which  its  author  occupies  and  is  to  occupy 
m  American  letters,  as  if  it  really  were  an  important 
matter ! 

One  of  our  Japanese  visitors  at  the  Centennial,  whom 
we  regarded  as  a  sort  of  interesting  heathen,  remarked 
patronizingly  that  "  we  must  all  remember  that  America 
is  very  young."     He  was  right. 

Pettiness  in  Art. 
In  an  article  published  some  months  since  in  this  de- 
partment, entitled  "  Greatness  in  Art,"  we  gave  utter- 
ance to  some  thoughts  which  we  would  like  to  emphasize 
here.  A  man  travelling  in  Europe  discovers  at  once  a 
different  style  of  art  from  that  produced  here — a  larger 
and  more  dignified  style.  The  pictures  which  he  sees 
there,  in  public  galleries  and  in  the  multitudinous  Cath- 
olic churches,  are  such  as  are  never  produced  here. 
There  is  no  outlet  here  for  the  largest  thoughts  and 
highest  inspirations  of  the  artist's  mind  and  hand. 
Men  must  paint  for  a  market.  If  there  are  no  pub- 
lic galleries  to  paint  for,  and  no  churches  demand 
their  work,  then  they  must  paint  for  the  walls  of  the 
homes  of  the  land.  This  necessarily  restricts  their 
paintings  in  the  matter  of  dimensions  ;  so  everybody 
paints  small  pictures.  A  small  picture  is  a  restriction 
in  the  matter  of  subjects.  A  dignified  historical  picture 
must  have  large  figures  to  be  impressive  ;  and  however 
serious  and  ambitious  a  painter  may  be,  he  is  loth  to 
place  a  work  that,  by  its  nature,  demands  a  large  can- 


Art.  75 

vas  and  broad  handling,  on  a  small  canvas  that  compels 
pettiness  of  detail  and  cftects. 

The  barrel  that  an  American  artist  may  have  in  his 
brain  cannot  be  sold  to  anybody.  The  largest  thing 
that  anybody  buys  is  a  gallon,  and  the  really  marketable 
things  are  quarts  and  pints.  An  artist  may  hold  in  his 
imagination  a  palace  for  kings  and  queens  and  the  nobil- 
ity of  the  earth,  but  he  can  only  sell  a  play-house  for 
children,  and  he  is  obliged  to  sell  to  get  food  and  shelter 
for  himself  and  his  dependents.  So  American  art  is 
made  up  of  the  quarts  and  pints  of  the  artistic  capacity 
of  its  producers  and  the  toy-houses  which  should  be  pal- 
aces and  broad  domains.  The  tendency  of  these  facts 
is  degrading  and  depressing  to  the  last  degree.  They 
have  already  dwarfed  American  art  and  circumscribed 
its  development.  When  it  gets  to  this — that  every  artist 
who  undertakes  a  great  thing  is  looked  upon  as  a  profli- 
gate or  a  fool,  because  there  is  no  market  for  a  great 
thing— matters  can  hardly  be  worse.  The  necessarily 
constant  consideration  of  marketableness  in  pictures  is 
very  degrading,  and  tends  inevitably  to  unfit  the  artist 
for  the  best  work.  Crowded  into  the  smallest  spaces, 
cut  off  from  all  great  ambitions,  men  cease  to  think 
largely,  grow  petty  in  their  subjects,  reach  out  into  strik- 
ing mannerisms  for  the  sake  of  effects  that  cannot  be 
produced  in  a  natural  way.  and  lavish  on  technique  the 
power  and  pains  that  should  go  into  great  designs  and  a 
free  and  full  individual  expression. 

The  recent  exhibition  of  water-colors  in  this  city 
showed  how  far  into  pettiness  the  artists  in  that  line  of 
work  ha\e  gone.  There  was  much  that  was  bright  and 
pretty  and  attractive,  but  how  irrcdeemal)ly  petty  it  all 
was!  It  maybe  said  that  nothing  can  ])e  expected  of 
water-colors  beyond  the  representation  of  petty  things, 
l)ut  we  remember  three  lar^re  water-color  exhibitions  in 


^6  Every -Day   Topics. 

London,  all  open  at  the  same  time,  where  there  were 
pictures  so  large  and  important  and  fine,  that  thousands 
of  dollars  were  demanded  for  them  and  commanded  by 
them.  The  painters  attempted  and  accomplished  great 
things.  They  showed,  at  least,  that  the  desire  and  the 
motive  to  do  great  things  were  not  absolutely  extin- 
guished within  them.  There  were  up-reachings  toward 
high  ideals.  Here,  we  seem  to  be  on  a  dead  level  of 
conception  and  aim,  and  the  man  cleverest  with  his  hand 
leads.  The  catalogue  will  rehearse  the  topics — too  triv- 
ial to  engage  any  poet's  attention,  too  petty  to  inspire 
any  man's  respect.  The  worst  of  this  is  that  this  collec- 
tion of  pettiness  was  sold  almost  to  the  last  picture. 
We  are  glad  to  see  the  purses  of  the  artists  filled  ;  but 
the  success  of  this  unprecedented  sale  must  be  to  en- 
courage them  in  a  path  of  degeneration  and  demoraliza- 
tion. 

It  pays  to  be  petty.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  there 
is  no  outlet  in  America  for  the  best  and  highest  that  her 
artists  can  do.  Wandering  through  the  beautiful  miles  of 
pictures  in  Rome,  in  Florence,  in  Munich,  in  Paris,  in 
Versailles,  in  London — gazing  upon  the  walls  of  splendid 
churches  scattered  all  over  Europe — we  can  see  where 
the  inspirations  have  come  from  that  have  made  that  art 
supreme.  The  market  for  great  work  was  open,  and  the 
best  and  greatest  that  the  best  and  greatest  artist  could  do 
was  sure  of  a  place  and  a  price.  When  America  estab- 
lishes galleries  of  pictures,  and  holds  the  funds  to  pay  for 
all  that  is  great  and  worthy,  the  great  and  worthy  pictures 
will  undoubtedly  be  painted.  Meantime,  the  artists  of  the 
country  must  fight  the  influences  which  depress  and  de- 
moralize them  as  best  they  can.  They  can  do  more  and 
better  than  they  are  doing  we  are  sure.  We  sincerely  hope 
that  next  year  we  shall  have,  in  all  our  exhibitions,  an  ad- 
vance in  the  subjects  treated,  so  that  pettiness  in  size  of 


Art.  n 

pictures  may  be  somewhat  atoned  for  by  dignity  and 
interest  of  topic,  and  a  larger  and  more  natural  style  of 
treatment.  The  nation  is  not  only  becoming  prosper- 
ous, but  is  constantly  progressing  in  the  knowledge  of 
art,  so  that  we  believe  all  good  artists  will  find  it  for 
their  pecuniary  advantage  to  go  higher  in  their  work — ■ 
higher  in  excellence  and  higher  in  price.  If  they  cannot 
sell  large  pictures,  they  can  surely  sell  those  of  graver 
import  and  more  elaborate  execution. 

Art  as  a  Steady  Diet. 

The  spread  of  art  and  art  ideas  in  this  country  hns 
been  accepted  as  a  sort  of  new  gospel.  A  new  and  ad- 
vanced religion  could  hardly  be  welcomed  more  cor- 
dially or  hopefully.  A  fresh  significance  has  been  given 
to  life,  and  in  everything — in  architecture,  in  painting, 
in  sculpture,  in  pottery,  in  home  decoration,  in  em- 
broidery, and  in  all  the  multitudinous  ways  in  which  the 
x'Sthetic  in  men  and  women  (especially  in  womenj  ex- 
presses itself — there  has  been  a  great  revival,  or  an 
absolutely  new  birth.  Partly,  this  is  the  result  of  the 
Centennial  Exhibition,  and  partly  it  is  the  result  of  a 
contagion  that  seems  to  swim  in  the  universal  air.  The 
whole  world  is  growing  artistic.  The  nations  are  stim- 
ulating one  another,  and  exchanging  ideas.  Our  own 
country,  though  it  has  been  the  last  to  awaken  out  of 
sleep,  bids  fair  to  run  its  new  enthusiasm  into  a  craze. 

We  were  about  to  write  that  this  new  enthusiasm  had 
spared  neither  age  nor  sex.  It  has  spared  no  age  among 
women  ;  Init  where  men  have  felt  the  now  impetus  in  a 
considerable  degree,  women  have  felt  it  in  a  supreme 
degree.  Distinct  from  the  great  mass,  there  are  two 
classes  of  women  who  have  seized  upon  the  new  ideas 
and  new  influences  to  help  them  out  of  trouble,  viz., 
those    who  have  nothing  to    do    because  they  have  no 


78  Every-Day   Topics. 

physical  wants  to  provide  for,  and  those  who,  since  the 
war  and  the  hard  times,  have  been  obhged  in  some  way 
to  provide  for  themselves.  The  multitudes  who  are  now 
"decorating"  porcelain,  learning  "the  Kensington 
stitch "  in  embroidery,  painting  on  satin,  illuminating 
panels,  designing  and  putting  together  curtains,  making 
lace,  drawing  from  the  antique,  sketching,  daubing,  etc., 
etc. ,  are  surprising.  Some  will  undoubtedly  find  agree- 
able employment  in  this,  and  kill  their  superfluous  time 
in  a  graceful  way.  Some  who  need  it  will  find  remu- 
nerative employment  in  it,  and  all  will  get  a  kind  of 
culture  by  it  that  America  has  sadly  needed.  In  the 
future,  American  homes  will  be  better  individualized 
than  they  have  been.  The  work  of  decoration  every- 
where will  be  modified.  We  shall  have  better  public 
and  domestic  architecture.  The  public  stock  of  art 
ideas  will  be  so  greatly  enlarged  that  the  country  will  be 
comparatively  safe  from  the  outrages  upon  good  taste 
that  confront  the  eye  in  both  city  and  country.  People 
will  at  least  know  enough  to  see  their  own  ignorance, 
and  to  be  careful  about  expressing  it. 

Now,  while  we  rejoice  in  this  development,  and  in  all 
the  pleasure  and  comfort  and  culture  it  brings,  we  warn 
all  against  expecting  too  much  from  it.  Art  is  a  very 
thin  diet  for  any  human  soul.  There  is  no  new  gospel 
in  it.  There  is  no  religion  in  it,  and  there  is  nothing  in 
it  to  take  the  place  of  religion.  It  has  to  do  with  but  few 
of  the  great  verities  and  vitalities  that  most  concern 
mankind.  Form,  configuration,  color,  construction,  all 
the  dainty  secrets  and  devices  of  presentment,  inven- 
tions of  phrase  and  tint  to  excite  the  imagination,  organic 
proportion,  internal  harmony  and  external  l:)eauty — • 
these  constitute  art,  as  a  vehicle.  Art  is  simply  a 
carrier  of  divine  things.  It  is  only  the  servant  of  su- 
preme values.     Art  is  no  leader  and  no  king  ;  and  the 


Art.  79 

soul  that  undertakes  to  live  by  being  the  servant  of  this 
servant,  will  certainly  win  inadequate  wages  and  die  of 
starvation.  For  art,  it  should  be  remembered,  adds 
nothing  to  morality,  nothing  to  religion,  nothing  to 
science,  nothing  to  knowledge  except  a  knowledge  ot 
itself,  nothing  to  social  or  political  wisdom,  theoreti- 
cally or  practically.  It  may  have  a  vehicular  office 
with  regard  to  all  these  ;  but  the  vital  values  are  in 
them,  and  not  at  all  in  it. 

It  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  go  to  the  old  and  familiar 
fields  of  Roman  and  Grecian  civilization  for  illustrations 
of  the  powcrlessness  of  art  to  conserve  and  to  develop  a 
national  life.  Rome  and  Athens  went  to  sleep  with  all 
the  marvels  of  their  art  around  them,  and  the  eye  of  To- 
day, prepared  for  vision  by  the  survey  of  other  fields 
than  those  of  art,  greets  those  marvels  with  the  first  ap- 
preciation they  have  had  through  long  centuries.  We 
have  only  to  turn  to  the  living  China  and  Japan  to  see 
how  little  art  can  do  toward  civilization,  and  how  insig- 
nificant an  clement  it  is  in  civilization.  Japan,  in  many 
matters  of  art,  can  teach  the  world,  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  China.  We  will  take  the  familiar  matter  of 
decorating  porcelain.  There  is  no  decoration  of  por- 
celain in  Europe  that  can  compare  for  a  moment  with 
the  best  of  that  executed  in  China  and  Japan.  English 
decoration  is  crude  and  coarse,  and  French  is  feeble  and 
conventional,  compared  with  that.  Sevres  porcelain 
has  been  shamed  into  poverty  and  commonplaccness  by 
the  rich  and  altogether  original  combinations  of  color 
that  illustrate  the  best  Oriental  art.  The  Japanese,  es- 
pecially, seem  to  have  learned  everything  there  is  to  be 
known  about  color,  so  fir  as  it  relates  to  the  fimiiiar 
varieties  of  decoration,  and  the  English  attempts  to  imi- 
tate their  work  are  equally  sad  and  laughable.  Wo 
mean  simply  to  assert  that,  in  every  department  of  art 


8o  Every- Day   Topics. 

to  which  they  have  specially  turned  their  attention,  they 
have  surpassed  the  civilized  world. 

And  what  does  all  this  prove  ?  What  but  that  art 
may  be  born  of  a  people  very  imperfectly  civilized  ? 
What  but  that  art  is  a  very  thin  and  innutritions  diet 
for  any  person  or  any  people  to  live  upon  ?  China  and 
Japan  are  trying  to  learn  everything  else  of  us.  They 
knew  little  or  nothing  of  science  ;  they  had  no  ma- 
chinery ;  their  literature  was  childish  ;  they  were  bound 
up  in  their  own  self-conceit  and  their  own  exclusive 
policy,  and  the  word  progress  was  an  unknown  word  in 
both  those  vast  realms,  until  daylight  shone  in  upon 
them  from  Europe  and  America.  Now  they  are  send- 
ing their  boys  to  us  to  learn  what  they  find  will  be  vastly 
for  their  advantage  to  know. 

We  trust  that  our  people,  in  the  new  interest  that  has 
been  awakened  in  all  matters  relating  to  art,  will  be  very 
moderate  in  their  expectations  of  results.  Art  is  an  ex- 
cellent servant,  and  a  very  poor  master.  When  a  man 
is  supremely  absorbed  in  it — when  he  has  no  thought 
for  anything  else — he  is  degraded  by  it.  It  is  simply 
not  the  supreme  thing,  and  cannot  be  treated  as  such 
without  damage.  It  is  most  likely  that,  as  China  and 
Japan  get  more  knowledge  and  abetter  hold  of  the  prac- 
tically productive  arts,  and  of  new  social  and  political 
ideas,  the  arts  that  now  distinguish  them  will  decay. 
The  new  interest  in  art  here  is  all  right,  and  very  much 
to  be  encouraged  ;  only  it  does  not  come  anywhere  near 
being  the  principal  thing,  and  cannot  be  treated  as  such, 
for  any  lengtli  of  time,  by  any  man  or  woman,  without 
incurring  mental  and  spiritual  poverty. 


LITERATURE. 

The  Legitimate  Novel. 

IT  is  a  curious  fact  that  while  the  novel,  as  a  form  of 
literary  art,  is  becoming  every  year  more  universal,  it 
is  hardening  into  a  conventional  form.  What  is  a  novel 
in  its  broadest  definition  ?  It  is  an  invented  history  of 
human  lives,  brought  into  relations  with  each  other, 
whose  first  office  is  to  amuse.  Some  of  these  inventions 
have  no  end  nor  aim  but  amusement,  and  those  which 
have  other  aims  rely  upon  amusement  for  effecting 
them.  The  novelist  who  has  a  lesson  to  teach,  or  a  re- 
form to  forward,  or  a  truth  or  principle  to  illustrate,  does 
not  hope  to  do  it  through  his  work,  unless  he  can  secure 
its  reading  through  its  power  to  amuse,  Mr.  Dallas,  in 
his  "  Gay  Science,"  says  that  the  first  business  of  all  art 
is  to  please,  which,  after  all,  is  only  our  doctrine  in  other 
words.  Any  work  of  literary  art,  whether  novel  or  poem, 
has  no  apology  for  existence,  if  it  do  not  have  the  power 
to  convey  pleasure  of  some  kind. 

Now,  the  fact  that  the  novel  has  been  seized  upon  the 
world  over,  for  a  great  number  of  offices,  shows  how 
naturally  it  is  adapted  to  a  wide  range  of  aims  and  ends 
in  its  construction.  Political,  moral,  social,  and  reli- 
gious topics  can  be  treated  through  the  medium  of  in- 
vented stories,  and  they  have  been  treated  in  this  way 
with  the  most  gratifying  success.  We  have  the  politi- 
cal, the  moral,  and  the  religious  novel,  and  we  have  also 
4* 


82  Every -Day    Topics. 

the  society  novel,  and  it  is  only  at  a  comparatively  re- 
cent date  that  a  set  of  critics  have  appeared  who  are  in- 
clined to  rule  out  of  the  category  of  legitimacy  every- 
thing but  the  society  novel.  Even  this  must  be  a  certain 
kind  of  society  novel  in  order  to  meet  their  approval. 
It  must  always  deal  with  the  passion  of  love  as  its  ruling 
motive,  and  consist  of  the  interplay  of  the  relations  be- 
tween men  and  women.  It  must  have  absolutely  no 
mission  but  that  of  amusement.  In  performing  this 
mission  it  must  be  true  to  certain  ideas  of  art  that  re- 
late to  the  delineation  of  character,  the  development  of 
plot,  and  the  arrangement  of  dramatic  situations  and  cli- 
maxes. If  the  rules  are  all  complied  with — if  the  love  is 
properly  made,  and  the  characters  are  properly  handled, 
and  the  novel  is  interesting  —  the  book  is  legitimate. 
If,  however,  the  book  is  made  to  carry  a  burden — if  it 
illustrates — no  matter  how  powerfully  —  an  important 
truth  or  principle  in  politics,  economy,  morals,  or  reli- 
gion, its  legitimacy  is  vitiated,  or  positively  forfeited. 

Now,  it  is  to  protest  against  this  ruling  that  we  write 
this  article.  The  dilettanti  assuming  authority  in  this 
matter  should  have  no  weight  among  earnest  men  and 
women,  because  they  are  not  earnest  themselves.  They 
have  no  moral,  religious,  social,  or  political  purpose,  and 
they  are  offended  when  they  meet  it  in  the  writings  of 
others.  It  is  beyond  their  comprehension  that  a  man 
should  have  any  purpose  in  writing  beyond  the  glorifica- 
tion of  himself  through  his  power  to  interest  and  amuse 
others.  If  he  undertakes  anything  beyond  this,  then 
they  pronounce  him  no  true  artist,  and  place  his  book 
outside  of  all  consideration  as  a  work  of  art.  In  the 
overwhelming  popularity  of  such  works  as  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  and  "Nicholas  Nickleby,"  written  with  a  hu- 
mane or  Christian  purpose,  these  fellows  cannot  make 
their  voices  heard,  but  Mrs.  Stowe  has  only  to  retire  and 


Literature.  83 

Dickens  to  die,  to  bring  them  out  of  their  holes  in  pro- 
test against  all  that  does  not  accord  with  their  petty 
notions  of  novel-writing. 

We  claim  for  the  novel  the  very  broadest  field.  It 
may  illustrate  history,  like  the  novels  of  Walter  Scott, 
or  philosophy,  like  those  of  George  Eliot,  or  religion, 
like  those  of  George  MacDonald,  or  domestic  and  poli- 
tical economy,  like  those  of  the  late  Mrs.  Sedgwick,  or 
it  may  represent  the  weak  or  the  ludicrous  side  of  human 
nature  and  human  society,  like  many  of  those  of  Dickens 
and  Thackeray,  or  it  may  present  the  lighter  social 
topics  and  types,  like  those  of  James  and  Howells,  or  it 
may  revel  in  the  ingenuities  of  intricate  plots,  like  those 
of  Collins  and  Reade — every  novel  and  every  sort  of 
novel  is  legitimate  if  it  be  well  written.  It  may  rely  upon 
plot  for  its  interest,  or  upon  the  delineation  of  character, 
or  upon  its  wit  or  its  philosophy,  or  upon  its  dramatic 
situations,  and  it  may  carry  any  burden  which  its  writer 
may  choose  to  place  upon  its  shoulders,  and  it  shall 
never  forfeit  its  claim  to  legitimacy  with  us. 

The  man  who  denies  to  art  any  kind  of  service  to 
humanity  which  it  can  perform  is  cither  a  fool  or  a 
trifler.  Things  have  come  to  a  sad  pass  when  any  form 
of  art  is  to  be  set  aside  because  a  board  of  self-consti- 
tuted arbiters  cannot  produce  it,  or  do  not  sympathize 
with  its  purpose.  There  is  more  freshness  and  interest 
in  '•  The  Grandissimes  "  of  Mr.  Cable,  with  its  reproduc- 
tion of  the  old  Creole  life  of  New  Orleans,  and  its  revival 
of  early  Louisiana  history,  than  in  all  the  novels  these 
dilettanti  have  written  in  the  last  ten  years.  It  is  unmis- 
takable that  the  tendency  of  modern  criticism  upon 
novels  has  been  to  make  them  petty  and  trifling  to  a 
nauseating  degree.  It  is  a  lamentable  consideration 
that  the  swing  of  a  petticoat,  or  the  turn  of  an  ankle,  or 
the  vapid  utterance  of  a  dandy,  or  even   the  delineation 


84  Every-Day   Topics. 

of  a  harlot  and  a  harlot's  disgusting  life,  shall  be  counted 
quite  legitimate  material  for  a  novel,  when  the  great 
questions  which  concern  the  life  and  prosperity  of  the 
soul  and  the  state  are  held  in  dishonor,  and  forbidden 
to  the  novelist  as  material  of  art. 

It  is  all  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  heresy  that  art  is  a 
master  and  not  a  minister — an  end  and  not  a  means. 
The  men  who  maintain  it  have  a  personal  interest  in 
maintaining  it.  Any  art  or  form  of  art,  that  does  not 
end  in  itself  or  in  themselves  is  one  of  which  they  are 
consciously  incapable,  or  one  with  which  they  cannot 
sympathize.  So  they  comfort  themselves  by  calling  it 
illegitimate  ;  and  as  they  are  either  in  a  majority  or  in 
high  or  fashionable  places,  the  public  are  misled  by 
them,  so  far  as  the  public  think  at  all  on  the  subject.  It 
is  a  doctrine  of  literary  pretenders  and  practical  tritlers, 
and  the  public  may  properly  be  warned  to  give  it  no  heed 
whatever. 

Dandyism. 

Carlyle  says  that  "  a  dandy  is  a  clothes-wearing  man 
— a  man  whose  trade,  office,  and  existence  consists  in  the 
wearing  of  clothes."  Then  he  adds,  in  his  grim  irony  : 
"Nay,  if  you  grant  what  seems  to  be  admissible,  that 
the  dandy  had  a  thinking  principle  in  him,  and  some 
notion  of  time  and  space,  is  there  not  in  the  life-devoted- 
ness  to  cloth,  in  this  so  willing  sacrifice  of  the  immortal 
to  the  perishable,  something  (though  in  reverse  order) 
of  that  blending  and  identification  of  eternity  with  time, 
which  ....     constitutes  the  prophetic  character." 

After  Carlyle  has  handled  the  dandy,  there  is  not,  of 
course,  much  left  for  other  people  to  do.  Still,  we  can 
reflect  a  little  more  particularly  on  the  style  of  mind 
which  produces  or  accompanies  dandyism,  and  get  our 
lesson  out   of  the  process.     Why  supreme  devotion  to 


Literature.  85 

dress,  on  the  part  of  a  man,  should  be  so  contemptible, 
and,  on  the  part  of  a  woman,  so  comparatively  venial,  we 
have  never  been  able  to  determine,  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  we  are  quite  ready  to  forgive  in  woman  a  weakness 
which  we  despise  in  man.  To  see  a  man  so  absorbed  in 
the  decoration  of  his  own  person,  and  in  the  develop- 
ment of  his  own  graces  that  all  other  objects  in  life  are 
held  subordinate  to  this  one  small  and  selfish  passion  or 
pursuit,  is  no  less  disgusting  than  surprising.  To  am- 
plify Carlyle's  definition  of  a  dandy  a  little,  we  may  say 
that  he  is  a  man  whose  soul  is  supremely  devoted  to  the 
outside  of  things,  particularly  the  outside  of  himself, 
and  who  prides  himself  not  at  all  on  what  he  is,  but  on 
what  he  seems,  and  not  at  all  on  seeming  sensible  or 
learned,  but  on  seeming  beautiful,  in  a  way  that  he  re- 
gards as  stylish.  A  male  human  being  who  cares 
supremely  about  the  quality  of  the  woollen,  silk,  linen, 
felt  and  leather  that  encase  his  body  and  the  place  where 
his  brains  should  be,  forgetting  the  soul  within  him  and 
the  great  world  without  him,  with  the  mysterious  future 
that  lies  before  him,  would  seem  to  deserve  the  mockery 
of  ail  mankind,  as  well  as  of  Carlyle. 

Still,  the  dandy  in  dress  is  not  a  very  important  topic 
to  engage  the  attention  of  a  man  who  is  sensible  enough 
to  read  a  magazine,  and  we  should  not  have  said  a  word 
about  him  if  we  did  not  detect  his  disposition  in  other 
things  besides  dress.  We  have  what  may  legitimately 
be  denominated  dandyism  in  literature.  Literature  is 
often  presented  as  the  outcome  of  as  true  dandyism  as 
is  ever  observed  in  dress.  Tlicre  are  many  writers, 
we  fear,  who  care  more  about  their  manner  of  saying 
a  thing  than  about  the  thing  they  have  to  say.  All  these 
devotees  to  style,  all  those  coiners  of  fine  phrases  who 
tax  their  ingenuity  to  make  their  mode  of  saying  a 
thing  more  remarkable  than  the  thing  said — men  who 


86  Every-Day  Topics. 

play  with  words  for  the  sake  of  the  words,  and  who  seek 
admiration  for  their  cleverness  in  handling  the  medium 
of  thought  itself,  and  men  also  who  perform  literary 
gymnastics  in  order  to  attract  attention — all  these  are 
literary  dandies.  The  great  verities  and  vitalities  of 
thought  and  life  are  never  supreme  with  these  men. 
They  would  a  thousand  times  rather  fail  in  a  thought 
than  trip  in  the  rounding  of  a  sentence  and  the  fall  of  a 
period.  Of  course,  all  this  petting  of  their  own  style,  and 
this  supreme  study  of  ways  with  words,  is  in  itself  so  self- 
ish a  matter  that  their  work  is  vitiated,  and  even  the 
semblance  of  earnestness  is  lost.  Dandies  in  literature 
never  accomplish  anything  for  anybody  except  them- 
selves. Verily  they  have  their  reward,  for  they  have 
their  admirers,  though  they  are  among  those-  no  more 
in  earnest  than  themselves. 

We  have  had  in  America  one  eminent  literary  dandy. 
He  lived  at  a  time  when  it  was  very  easy  for  a  man  of 
literary  gifts  to  make  a  reputation — easy  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  people  ;  and  the  temptation  to  toy  with 
the  popular  heart  was  too  great  for  him  to  resist,  and  so 
he  who  could  have  taught  and  inspired  his  countrymen 
was  content  to  play  with  his  pen,  and  seek  for  their  ap- 
plause. He  had  his  reward.  He  was  as  notorious  as  he 
sought  to  be.  People  read  his  clever  verses  and  clapped 
their  hands,  but  those  verses  did  not  voice  any  man's  or 
woman's  aspirations,  or  soothe  any  man's  or  woman's 
sorrows.  They  helped  nobody.  They  were  not  the 
earnest  outpourings  of  a  nature  consecrated  either  to 
God  or  song,  and  the  response  that  they  met  in  the  pub- 
lic heart  was  not  one  of  grateful  appropriation,  though 
that  heart  was  not  slow  to  offer  the  incense  of  its  admira- 
tion to  the  clever  and  graceful,  even  if  supremely  selfish, 
artist.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  this  superb 
literary   dandy    has   found    no   one    who   cared   enough 


Literature.  87 

for  him  to  write  his  life  ;  and  it  takes  a  pretty  poor  sort 
of  literary  man  nowadays  to  escape  a  biography.  We 
would  not  speak  of  this  man  were  we  not  conscious  that 
we  have — now  living  and  writing — others  who  are  like 
him  in  spirit  and  in  aim — men  who  are  supremely  anx- 
ious to  get  great  credit  for  their  way  of  doing  things,  and 
who  are  interested  mainly  in  the  externals  of  literature — 
men  who,  moved  by  personal  vanity,  are  seeking  rather 
to  attract  attention  to  themselves  than  to  impress  their 
thoughts,  as  elevating  and  purifying  forces,  upon  their 
generation. 

Dandyism  does  not  stop  either  with  dress  or  literature, 
but  invades  all  art.  Never,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of 
painting,  has  there  been  so  much  dandyism  in  art  as  at 
the  present  day.  Never,  it  seems  to  us,  were  painters 
so  much  devoted  to  painting  the  outside  of  things  as 
they  are  now.  We  are  dazzled  everywhere  with  tricks  of 
color,  fantastic  dress,  subjects  chosen  only  with  refer- 
ence to  their  adaptation  to  the  revelation  of  the  special 
clevernesses  of  those  who  treat  them.  It  seems  as  if 
every  painter  who  had  managed  to  achieve  some  remark- 
able trick  of  handling,  were  making  it  the  business  of  his 
life  to  play  that  trick,  and  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  any 
topic  which  will  not  furnish  him  the  occasion  for  its  use. 
Our  young  men,  in  a  great  number  of  instances,  are  run- 
ning after  these  trick-masters,  learning  nothing  of  art  in 
its  deeper  meanings,  but  supremely  busy  with  the  out- 
side of  things,  and  very  trivial  things  at  that.  In  this 
devotion  to  the  tricks  of  art,  all  earnestness  and  wortlii- 
ncss  of  purpose  die,  and  art  becomes  simply  a  large  and 
useless  field  of  dandyism. 

We  have  plenty  of  dandyism  in  the  pulpit.  Wc  do 
not  allude  to  the  dandyism  of  clerical  regalia,  although 
there  is  a  disgusting  amount  of  that  ;  but  the  devotion  to 
externals  as  they  relate  to  manner  of  writing,  and  man- 


88  Every-Day   Topics. 

ner  of  speech,  and  manner  of  social  intercourse.  The 
preacher  who  is  in  dead  earnest,  and  has  nothing  to  ex- 
hibit but  the  truth  he  preaches,  is  not  a  man  of  formali- 
ties. The  clerical  dandy  impresses  one  with  himself  and 
not  with  his  Master.  He  shows  off  himself.  He  studies 
his  poses  and  his  intonations  as  if  he  were  in  very  deed 
an  actor.  We  have  stylists  in  the  pulpit,  we  have  actors 
in  the  pulpit,  who  challenge  attention  and  intend  to 
challenge  attention  by  their  manner,  and  it  is  not  at  all 
a  manner  of  humble  earnestness.  Preachers  are  human, 
and  they,  like  the  rest  of  us,  should  pray  to  be  de- 
livered from  the  sin  of  dandyism. 

The  Prices  of  Books. 
One  of  the  greatest  anomalies  of  commerce  is  pre- 
sented by  the  considerations  which  govern  the  prices 
of  books.  If  we  step  into  a  retail  book  store,  and  in- 
quire the  price  of  a  book  of,  say,  five  hundred  pages  duo- 
decimo, we  shall  learn  that  it  is  about  two  dollars.  On 
looking  into  it,  we  shall  learn  that  it  is  a  crude  novel — the 
product  of  a  young  girl's  brains,  and  of  very  little  con- 
cern to  any  but  girls  of  the  age  of  the  writer.  The  next 
book  we  take  up  shall  be  one  of  the  same  size,  by  the 
best  novelist  of  his  language,  and  the  price  is  also  two 
dollars.  We  pass  along  a  little  further,  and  pick  up 
another  book,  of  the  same  cost  in  paper  and  mechanical 
production,  but  this  time  it  is  a  philosophical  work.  The 
author  is  eminent,  and  this  is  the  latest  declaration  of  a 
most  fertile  mind — the  grand  result  of  all  his  thinking — 
the  best  summary  of  all  his  wisdom.  The  price  of  it  is 
two  dollars.  The  next  is  a  poem.  It  took  the  author 
years  to  write  it.  His  art  is  at  its  best,  and  he  does  not 
expect  to  surpass  it.  He  gives  to  the  world,  in  this 
poem,  the  highest  it  is  in  him  to  conceive.  His  very 
heart's  blood  has  been  coined   into  its  phrases  and  its 


Literature.  •  89 

fancies — price  two  dollars.  The  next  book  examined  is 
a  collection  of  the  flabby  jokes  of  some  literary  mounte- 
bank, and,  on  inquiring  the  price,  we  find  that  it  costs 
about  the  same  to  print  it  that  it  did  to  print  the  others, 
and  can  be  had  for  two  dollars. 

Our  natural  conclusion  is,  that  the  quality  of  the  ma- 
terial put  into  a  book  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  price  of  it.  The  work  of  a  poor  brain  sells  for  just 
as  much,  if  it  sells  at  all,  as  the  work  of  a  good  brain. 
Even  when  we  find  an  extra  price  put  upon  a  book  that 
appeals  to  a  limited  class,  we  learn  that  the  fact  has  no 
reference  to  the  quality  of  the  work,  or  to  its  cost  to  the 
man  who  wrote  it.  The  extra  price  is  put  on  simply  to 
save  the  publisher  from  loss.  The  printer  and  paper- 
maker  must  be  paid.  The  author  is  not  taken  into  ac- 
count. 

As  the  quality  of  a  painter's  work  grows  finer  and 
better,  his  pictures  command  increasing  prices.  The 
master  in  sculpture  commands  the  market.  He  gets 
such  prices  as  he  will.  Quality  is  an  element  of  price 
in  everything  salable  that  we  know  of,  except  books. 
The  prices  of  these  are  raised  or  depreciated  only  by  the 
printer,  the  paper-maker,  and  the  binder.  Quality  of  the 
mechanical  parts  of  the  product  is  considered  only  by  the 
publisher.  The  quality  of  the  brain  that  invented  and 
elaborated  the  book,  the  quality  of  the  life  that  has  gone 
into  it,  the  quality  of  the  art  which  has  given  it  form — 
this  sort  of  quality  is  not  taken  into  consideration  at  all. 

Authorship,  though  more  prosperous  and  independent 
than  it  was  formerly,  has  not  yet  received  its  proper  posi- 
tion in  the  world.  It  was  a  pauper  for  centuries,  and  still, 
among  a  large  number  of  book  publishers  and  book 
buyers,  the  author  is  regarded  as  a  man  whose  property 
in  a  book  is  an  intangiljle  and  very  unimportant  matter. 
The  author  has  nothing  whatever  to  say  about  the  price 


90  Every-Day   Topics. 

of  his  book.  He  takes  what  the  pubHsher,  who  is  in 
direct  competition  with  pirates,  is  willing  or  able  to  give 
him. 

Now  printing,  paper,  and  binding  involve  processes 
of  manufacture,  the  prices  of  which  vary  but  little  from 
year  to  year.  They  are  easily  calculable,  and  a  pub- 
lisher knows  within  three  or  four  cents  a  copy  just  how 
much  a  book  will  cost  him  delivered  at  his  counter.  He 
receives  his  books  like  so  many  bales  of  cott.on  goods, 
or  cases  of  shoes.  Of  the  life,  the  education,  the  genius, 
the  culture,  the  exhausting  toil,  the  precious  time,  the 
hope,  that  went  to  the  production  of  the  manuscript  from 
which  the  books  were  printed,  he  takes  little  account.  A 
certain  percentage  upon  the  retail  sales  goes  to  the  au- 
thor, and  the  author  takes  just  what  the  publisher  says 
he  can  afford  to  give  him. 

Well,  the  golden  age  of  authorship  is  coming,  some 
time,  and  when  it  comes,  the  amount  of  an  author's 
royalty  will  be  printed  on  the  title-page  of  his  book.  He 
can  ask  the  public  to  pay  him  for  royalty  what  he  will, 
and  if  the  public  will  not  pay  him  his  price,  then — the 
book  being  produced  and  sold  by  the  publisher  at  regu- 
lar rates — the  author,  and  not  the  publisher,  will  be  com- 
pelled to  reduce  the  price,  by  reducing  the  royalty. 
Printing  and  selling  books  form  a  very  simple  business, 
that  men  may  pursue  under  the  same  rules  that  govern 
every  other  business  ;  but  in  no  way  can  an  author  get 
justice  until  he  has  a  voice  in  determining  the  price  of 
his  books,  and  the  public  know  exactly  what  they  are 
paying  him.  At  present  he  has  no  direct  relation  with 
the  public.  No  discriminations  are  made,  either  for  or 
against  him.  He  stands  behind  the  publisher,  and  the 
public  do  not  see  him  at  all.  We  see  no  reason  why 
there  should  not  appear  on  the  title-page  of  every  book 
the  price  and  the  amount  of  the  author's  royalty— show- 


Literature.  91 

ing  exactly  who  is  responsible  for  the  price  of  the  book, 
particularly  if  it  be  large.  We  do  not  think  the  plan 
would  result  in  the  increase  of  the  cost  of  books  to  the 
public,  except  in  instances  where  it  ought  to  be  in- 
creased. This,  or  something  equivalent  to  this,  will 
come  when  we  get  the  international  copyright.  It  may 
take  the  form  that  it  does  in  England,  where  a  pub- 
lisher buys  a  manuscript  outright,  and  sells  his  volumes 
at  a  price  based  mainly  on  the  cost  of  it.  In  some  way 
the  quality  of  literary  work  must  be  recognized  in  the 
price  of  a  book  ;  in  some  way  a  literary  man's  well- 
earned  reputation  must  be  taken  into  account  in  the 
sale  of  his  productions,  or  authorship  must  suffer  a  con- 
stant and  most  discouraging  wrong.  We  shall  have  the 
matter  all  adjusted,  by  and  by. 

The  Literary  Class. 
In  the  great  world  of  common  and  uncommon  men 
and  women  who  are  outside  of  the  pale  of  literary  cul- 
ture, there  exist  certain  prejudices  against  the  literary 
class,  which  are  little  recognized  and  little  talked  about, 
but  which  are  positive  and  pernicious.  There  is  a  feel- 
ing that  this  class  is  conceited,  supercilious,  selfish,  and, 
to  a  very  great  extent,  useless.  There  is  a  feeling  that 
it  is  exclusive  ;  that  it  arrogates  to  itself  the  possession 
of  tastes  and  powers  above  the  rest  of  the  world,  upon 
which  it  looks  down  with  contemptuous  superiority. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  connected  with  this  prejudice  a 
dim  conviction  that  the  literary  class  is  really  superior 
to  the  rest  of  the  world  in  its  requirements,  its  tastes, 
and  its  sources  of  pleasure  ;  that  culture  is  better  than 
stocks  and  bonds  ;  that  literary  life  occupies  a  higher 
jjlane  than  commercial,  manufacturing,  and  agricul- 
tural life,  and  that  it  holds  a  wealth  which  money  cannot 
buy,  and  which  ordinary  values  can  in  no  way  measure. 


92  Every -Day   Topics. 

Much  of  the  unspoken  protest  that  rises  against  the  as- 
sumptions of  the  literary  class,  and  against  the  arro- 
gance which  it  is  supposed  to  possess,  undoubtedly 
comes  from  a  feeling  of  inferiority  and  impotence — of 
conscious  inability  to  rise  into  its  atmosphere,  and  to 
appropriate  its  wealth  and  its  satisfactions. 

Having  said  this,  it  may  also  be  said  that  the  literary 
class  is  very  largely  to  blame  for  this  state  of  things.  It 
has  almost  uniformly  failed  to  recognize  its  relations  and 
its  duties  to  the  world  at  large.  It  has  been  bound  up 
in  itself.  It  has  read  for  itself,  thought  for  itself,  written 
for  itself.  It  has  had  respect  mainly  to  its  own  critical 
judgments.  It  has  been  a  kind  of  close  corporation — a 
mutual  admiration  society.  It  has  looked  for  its  inspira- 
tions mainly  within  its  own  circle.  It  has,  in  ten  thou- 
sand ways,  nourished  the  idea  that  it  is  not  interested 
in  the  outside  world  ;  that  it  does  not  care  for  the  out- 
side world  and  its  opinions  ;  that  it  owes  no  duty  to  it, 
and  has  no  message  for  it.  Its  criticisms  and  judgments, 
in  their  motive  and  method,  are  often  of  the  most  frivo- 
lous character.  An  author  is  not  judged  according  to 
what  he  has  done  for  the  world,  but  for  what  he 
has  done  for  himself,  and  for  what  they  are  pleased 
to  denominate  "  literature."  To  certain,  or  most  un- 
certain, men  of  art,  or  canons  of  art,  or  notions  of  art, 
it  holds  itself  in  allegiance,  ignoring  the  uses  of  art 
altogether.  It  has  its  end  in  itself.  It  is  a  cat  that 
plays  with  and  swallows  its  own  tail. 

Now,  it  seems  to  us  that  if  the  literary  class  has  an/ 
apology  for  existence,  it  must  come  from  its  uses  to  the 
world.  It  entertains  a  certain  contempt  for  the  v.orld, 
which  docs  not  appreciate  and  will  not  take  its  wares 
forgetting  that  it  has  not  endeavored,  in  any  way,  to  serve 
the  world,  by  the  adaptation  of  its  wares  to  the  world's 
use.     Endeavoring  to  be  true  to  itself,  bowing  in  devo- 


Literature.  93 

tion  and  loyalty  to  its  own  opinions  and  notions,  it  utters 
its  word,  and  then,  because  the  great  outside  world  will 
not  hear  it,  complains,  and  finds  its  revenge  in  holding 
the  popular  judgment  in  contempt.  It  gives  the  world 
what  it  cannot  appreciate,  what  it  cannot  appropriate  ; 
what,  in  its  condition,  it  does  not  need  ;  what  it  turns 
its  back  upon, — and  finds  its  consolation  in  inside  praise, 
and  a  reputation  for  good  work  among  those  who  do  not 
need  it. 

In  the  best  book  we  have,  there  are  certain  rules  of 
life  laid  down,  that  are  just  as  good  for  the  literary  as  for 
the  moral  and  religious  world.  The  Son  of  Man  came 
not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister.  He  that 
would  be  great  must  be  a  servant.  If  any  man  has 
special  gifts,  and  achieves  special  culture  of  those  gifts, 
his  greatness  is  brought,  by  irreversible  law  and  the 
divine  policy,  into  immediate  relation  with  the  want  of 
the  world.  He  is  to  be  a  servant,  and  thus  to  prove  his 
title  to  lordship.  His  true  glory  is  only  to  be  found  in 
ministering.  If  he  do  not  minister,  he  has  no  right  to 
honor.  If  he  will  not  minister,  he  holds  his  gift  un- 
worthily, and  has  no  more  reason  to  expect  the  honor 
of  the  world  for  what  he  does,  than  he  would  if  he  did 
nothing.  The  military  and  administrative  gifts  of 
Washington  were,  undoubtedly,  well  known  and  honored 
among  the  military  and  political  classes,  but  their  sig- 
nificance and  glory  were  only  brought  out  in  service. 
He  is  honored  and  revered,  not  because  he  served  his 
class,  but  Ijecause  he  served  his  country.  Those  emi- 
nent ;j,ifts  of  his  had  no  meaning  save  as  they  were  re- 
lated to  the  wants  of  his  time  ;  and  tlieir  glory  is  th;it 
they  served  those  wants.  The  glory  of  Watt,  and 
Fulton,  and  Stevenson,  and  Morse,  and  Howe,  is,  not 
that  they  were  ingenious  men,  but  that  they  placed  their 
ingenuity  in  the  service  of  the  world.     The  honor  we 


94  Every-Day   Topics. 

give  to  Howard  and  Florence  Nightingale  is  not  given 
to  their  sympathetic  hearts,  but  to  their  helpful  hands. 

Why  should  the  literary  class,  of  all  the  gifted  men 
and  women  of  the  world,  alone  hold  its  gifts  in  service 
of  itself?  Why  should  it  refuse  to  come  down  into  the 
service  of  life  ?  There  is  an  audience  waiting  for  every 
literary  man  and  woman  who  will  speak  to  it.  Why 
should  the  world  be  blamed  for  not  overhearing  what 
literary  men  and  women  say  to  each  other  ?  The  talk 
is  not  meant  for  them.  It  has  nothing  in  it  for  them; 
and  there  is  a  feeling  among  them — not  thoroughly  well- 
defined,  perhaps,  but  real — that  they  are  defrauded. 
All  this  feeling  of  contempt  for  the  non-literary  world 
on  one  side,  and  this  jealousy  of  the  literary  class  on  the 
other,  will  not  exist  for  a  moment  after  the  relations  be- 
tween them  are  practically  recognized.  When  the 
world  is  served,  it  will  regard  its  servant  as  its  bene- 
factor, and  the  great  interest  of  literature  will  be  pros- 
perous. Book  after  book  falls  dead  from  the  press,  be- 
cause, and  only  because,  it  is  not  the  medium  of  service. 
The  world  finds  nothing  in  it  that  it  needs.  W^hy  should 
the  world  buy  it  ?  The  golden  age  of  American  litera- 
ture can  never  dawn  until  the  world  has  learned  to  look 
upon  the  literary  class  as  its  helper,  its  inspirer,  its 
leader  in  culture  and  thought ;  and  it  can  never  learn  to 
look  thus  upon  that  class  until  it  has  been  ministered  to 
in  all  its  wants  by  direct  purpose,  in  simple  things  as 
well  as  in  sublime. 

The  Interest  of  Fiction. 
"Daniel  Deronda"  has  been  perused  by  divines, 
lawyers,  merchants,  women  and  girls.  Wherever  it  has 
been  read,  it  has  excited  an  interest  equalled  by  few 
histories  that  have  ever  appeared.  This  is  an  age  of 
science — of  "  popular  science," — the  age  of  revelations 


Literature.  95 

in  knowledge  and  fevolutions  in  thought — but  no  other 
form  of  expression  to  which  the  age  has  given  birth  has 
so  enchained  the  attention  of  so  large  and  intelligent  an 
audience  as  this  has  done.  It  was  anticipated  with  lively 
pleasure  ;  it  has  been  read  with  profound  attention  ;  it 
has  been  discussed  as  earnestly  as  if  every  statement  and 
incident  and  revealed  relation  were  as  real  as  our  every- 
day life,  and  as  if  the  outcome  were  as  genuine  a  fact  as 
history  records,  or  science  determines. 

What  is  the  reason  of  all  this  ?  The  most  obvious 
answer— that  which  lies  nearest  the  surface^is  that  there 
is  nothing  so  interesting  to  men  and  women  as  men  and 
women.  The  never-dying  interest  that  interplays  be- 
tween the  sexes,  the  display  of  new  combinations  of 
traits  in  the  formation  of  character,  the  revelation  of  new 
phases  of  old  forms  of  character,  the  depiction  of  na- 
tional peculiarities  and  types,  the  unravelling  of  what 
seem  to  be  threads  of  destiny  running  between  and  unit- 
ing various  lives,  the  dramatic  developments  when  these 
lives  come  into  close  relations, — coalescing  or  colliding, 
— the  grand  progressions,  the  happenings,  the  incidents, 
the  accidents,  the  happinesses,  the  miseries,  the 
triumphs,  the  defeats,  the  wide  sweep  onward  to  a  con- 
summation— all  these  enlist  a  deep  sympathy  ;  and  if 
the  art  of  the  writer  be  good,  they  are  history,  having  all 
the  charm  of  the  most  charming  history.  We  know  a 
little  of  what  life  is  to  ourselves  :  it  is  natural  for  us  to 
wish  to  know  what  it  is  to  others.  We  like  to  get  inside 
of  other  life — to  watch  its  motives,  its  internal  and  ex- 
ternal controlling  forces,  its  actions  and  reactions,  its 
purposes  and  plans,  its  powers  and  passions,  and  to 
witness  the  final  outcome.  In  truth,  the  study  of  others, 
thrown  into  varied  relations,  is  a  study  of  ourselves  and 
our  friends  ;  and  ourselves  and  our  friends  interest  us 
more  than  science,  or  politics,  or  metaphysics. 


9'J  Every- Day   Topics. 

There  is  a  universal  recognition,  too,  that  the  love  of 
the  sexes  for  each  other  is  the  master  passion  of  human- 
ity. It  is  hvely  in  the  young,  and  its  memories,  at  least, 
linger  among  the  old,  as  the  sweetest  they  possess.  The 
roses  and  violets  may  not  be  fresh  with  the  latter,  but 
their  odor  still  lingers  about  the  vases  in  which  they  were 
laid  away  to  wither  and  to  fade.  So  love  is  always  in- 
teresting to  all,  and  the  novel  that  does  not  contain  it, 
in  some  form,  always  disappoints.  Love,  indeed,  may 
be  called  the  staple  passion  of  the  novel.  Without  it, 
novels  would  hardly  be  written  ;  and  it  is  found  only  in 
the  novel  and  the  poem.  It  is  either  above  or  below  the 
dignity  of  bistory  ;  science  never  undertakes  its  analy- 
sis, and  philosophy  severely  lets  it  alone,  or  only  treats 
it  in  the  dry,  objective  way  that  it  would  discuss  anger 
or  pride.  So  the  novel  is  specially  interesting  in  its 
treatment  of  the  love  of  the  sexes,  and  so  it  appeals  to 
the  dominant  passion  of  the  race. 

Characterization  has  become  a  prominent  trait  of  the 
modern  novel.  The  old  novels  dwelt  mainly  among  the 
events  and  incidents  of  life  ;  but  the  men  and  women 
were  much  alike.  In  the  modern  novel,  we  have  closely 
defined  characters,  so  that  the  men  and  women  we  find 
in  it  impress  themselves  upon  us  by  force  of  individual- 
ity. We  love  them,  admire  them,  despise  them,  as  if 
they  were  real.  They  come  to  us  as  interesting,  indi- 
vidualized studies — as  new  acquaintances,  consistent 
evermore  with  themselves,  and  building  up  for  themselves 
separate  memories  in  our  minds.  These  fresh  individ- 
ualities are  even  more  interesting  to  us  than  if  we  had  met 
them  in  actual  life  ;  for  the  novelist  helps  us  to  study 
and  weigh  them  justly.  This  matter  of  characterization 
has  done,  perhaps,  more  than  love  to  make  the  modern 
novel  a  universal  companion.  The  study  of  types,  and 
especially  types  of  character,  is  a  philosophical  study, 


Literature.  97 

and  many  a  great  mind  that  does  not  care  for  love,  or 
for  the  dramatic  element  in  life  and  literature,  studies  a 
character  with  supreme  interest. 

Again,  all  men  are  interested  in  a  strife  of  good  and 
evil  forces  ;  and  these  enter  into  every  acceptable  novel. 
A  novel  that  is  wholly  bad  is  disgusting  ;  and  a  novel 
that  is  wholly  good  is  hardly  less  so.  There  is  very  little 
in  any  novel  so  intensely  interesting  as  the  strife  be- 
tween its  good  and  evil  elements ;  and  the  novelist  who 
does  not  sympathize  with  the  good  element,  and  make 
it  triumphant  in  the  grand  outcome  of  his  story,  can  only 
hold  his  audience  by  marvellous  exhibitions  of  power 
in  description  and  characterization.  Whatever  dogmas 
we  may  hold  concerning  the  total  depravity  of  human 
nature,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  men  and  women  uni- 
versally sympathize  with  the  innocent  and  the  good,  in 
their  strife  with  the  intriguing  and  plotting  of  the  bad, 
and  that  they  rejoice  only  in  the  triumph  of  the  former. 
This  strife  between  good  and  evil,  between  justice  and 
injustice,  between  frank  innocence  and  jealous  malice,  is 
a  strife  with  which  all  are  familiar — a  strife  that  enters 
into  every  life  and  every  society  ;  and  that  is  where  the 
novel  touches  the  moral  element  in  men  and  women. 
So  there  are  multitudes  caring  little  for  love,  perhaps, 
and  less  for  typical  character,  who  find  their  interest  in 
a  novel  mainly  in  its  exhibition  of  antagonistic  moral 
forces,  that  find  a  resolution  in  a  triumph  of  the  right. 

All  this  means  something  more  than  instruction  :  it 
means  amusement.  Anything  that  pleasantly  interests 
and  absorbs  the  mind  is  recreation,  when  it  comes  out- 
side of  the  demands  of  work.  There  is  a  small  number, 
enlarging,  perhaps,  from  year  to  year,  who  read  novels 
from  an  artist's  stand-point, — who  are  critics,  who  find 
their  satisfaction  in  the  artistic  development  of  character 
and  plot,  who  delight  in  style,  and  weigh  a  dramatic 
5 


98  Every-Day   Topics. 

climax  in  scales,  who  study  a  novel  as  a  novel ;  but  the 
multitude  read  a  novel  simply  for  the  pleasant  occupa- 
tion of  their  minds.  Life  is  humdrum,  or  fatiguing,  and 
they  come  to  the  novel  only  for  forgetfulness,  or  the 
pleasant  excitement  that  a  contemplation  of  new  scenes 
and  new  characters  affords.  To  such  as  these,  a  good 
novel  is  a  benediction,  for  it  relieves  them  of  their 
burdens,  clothes  the  commonplace  with  romance,  and 
gives  new  meaning  to  human  action  and  human  life. 

To  suppose  that  fiction  could  permanently  appeal  to 
so  many  classes  of  mind  if  it  were  only  fiction,  is  to  sup- 
pose an  absurdity.  Fiction  is  most  powerful  when  it 
contains  most  truth  ;  and  there  is  but  little  truth  that 
we  get  so  true  as  that  which  we  find  in  fiction.  So  long 
as  history  is  written  by  partisans,  and  science  by  theo- 
rists, and  philosophy  by  hobby-riders,  the  faithful 
studies  of  human  life,  as  we  find  them  in  the  best  novels, 
are  the  truest  things  we  have  ;  and  they  cannot  fail  to 
continue  to  be  the  source  of  our  favorite  knowledge,  our 
best  amusements,  and  our  finest  inspirations. 

Books  and  Reading. 
Rev.  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor  has  recently  delivered  in 
this  city  a  very  valuable  and  interesting  lecture,  on  the 
subject  which  we  have  written  as  the  title  of  this  article. 
One  of  the  most  suggestive  passages  of  the  lecture  was 
that  relating  to  personal  character  as  the  basis  of  suc- 
cessful reading.  We  do  not  remember  any  special 
reference  to  the  means  through  which  this  character  is 
lost,  by  reading  itself,  although  it  was  suggested  ;  and 
to  these  it  should  be  profitable  to  call  attention.  After 
all,  the  character  necessary  to  profitable  reading  is, 
when  we  come  to  measure  and  analyze  it,  hardly  more, 
and  little  else,  than  the  power  of  study — the  power  to  fix 
and  hold  the  attention,  to  master  principles  and  details, 


Literature.  93 

to  seize  the  dominant  motive  of  a  book,  and  to  appropri- 
ate and  assimilate  what  there  is  in  it  for  the  reader,  of 
food  for  personal  culture. 

At  some  period  of  the  life  of  every  man  and  woman 
of  fairly  good  education,  the  power  of  study  has  been  in 
possession.  Any  man  or  woman  who  has  once  studied 
successfully  has  possessed  the  qualifications  for  profit- 
able reading  ;  and  we  believe  that  there  are  compara- 
tively few  who  do  not  become  conscious  of  the  loss  of 
this  power,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree.  Disuse  of  the 
power  will  account  for  this  loss  in  many  instances — in- 
deed, in  most  instances.  The  cares  of  business  or  the 
household,  the  diversions  of  society,  sometimes  the  lack 
of  opportunity  to  get  good  books,  leave  the  power  of 
study  to  dissipation.  Beyond  these,  and  more  mischiev- 
ous than  these,  is  a  cause  of  this  loss  of  power  in  the 
kind  of  reading  indulged  in.  The  pursuit  of  one  class 
of  reading  to  excess,  in  accordance  with  a  pronounced 
individual  taste,  disqualifies  for  another  class.  A  man 
with  a  taste  for  poetry,  so  strong  that  his  power  for  study 
is  not  called  into  use  at  all,  may  lose  his  power  for  study- 
ing history  or  philosophy,  and  vice  versa.  A  woman 
with  a  decided  love  of  novel-reading  may  indulge  in  her 
taste  or  passion  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  an  absolute 
pain  to  her  to  undertake  to  read  anything  else.  A  per- 
son with  antiquarian  tastes  may  become  so  dev'oted  to 
their  gratification  that  he  can  fix  his  attention  upon  noth- 
ing that  relates  to  the  current  interests  of  society  or 
the  state.  Newspaper-reading  is  one  of  the  most  fruitful 
causes  of  the  loss  of  the  power  to  study.  To  a  newspa- 
per-reader, an  antiquarian  book  is  more  dry  than  dust, 
and  history  no  more  significant  than  a  last  year's  al- 
manac. 

In  these  days,  all  men  and  women  read  something, 
but  the  trouble  is  that  by  reading  in  a  single  vein,  which 


lOO  Every  Day    Topics.  • 

so  strongly  appeals  to  their  individual  tastes  and  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasies  that  it  is  not  study  at  all,  they  lose 
their  power  to  study  anything  else.  The  rule  for  suc- 
cessful and  profitable  reading  would,  in  the  light  of  these 
facts,  seem  to  be  to  read  only  what  one  does  not  like  to 
read.  That  reading  which  costs  no  effort  and  necessarily 
dissipates  the  power  of  study,  is  that  which  we  should 
indulge  in  only  for  recreation,  while  that  which  we  know 
to  be  important  in  itself,  and  in  its  bearings  upon  bioad 
knowledge  and  culture,  should  most  engage  our  time 
and  attention.  The  trouble  is,  not  that  we  do  not  read 
enough,  but  that  we  read  so  much  of  that  which  simply 
pleases  us  as  to  destroy  our  power  to  read  that  which 
will  edify  and  enlarge  us.  There  are  many  aspects  in 
which  newspaper  reading  is  preferable  to  much  that  is 
considered  essential  to  high  culture.  It  is  undoubtedly 
dissipating  to  the  power  of  study,  but  so  is  any  other 
reading  which  is  pursued  as  a  passion.  It  has  this  ad- 
vantage :  that  it  never  detaches  the  mind  from  a  supreme 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  to-day.  There  are  studies  which 
separate  a  man  from  his  time — which  shut  off  his  sym- 
pathies from  the  men  and  the  movements  around  him. 
There  is  a  kind  of  dilettanteism  which  rejoices  in  mous- 
ing in  dark  corners  for  the  curiosities  of  history  or  art, 
which  is  wise  about  great  nothings — wise  about  bric-a- 
brac,  w^ise  about  antique  gems,  wise  about  coins,  wise 
about  classical  antiquities,  wise  about  old  books  of  whose 
contents  it  knows  little,  wise  about  dead  and  useless 
things,  and  foolish  enough  to  plume  itself  upon  its  wis- 
dom. Now,  any  reading  that  does  not  make  us  better 
citizens — more  capable  of  meeting  and  mastering  the 
needs  of  the  time  and  generation  in  which  our  life  is 
cast,  is  reading  which  we  cannot  afford  to  engage  in. 

Young  men  of  ambitious  aims  are  fond  of  asking  advice 
as  to  a  "  course  of  reading."     The  safest  advice  that  can 


Literature.  loi 

be  given  them  is  to  read  least  the  books  they  like  best, 
if  they  would  retain  their  power  to  study,  or  to  read 
profitably  at  all.  A  special,  strong  liking  for  one  kind 
of  literature  betrays  a  one-sided  nature,  or  a  one-sided 
development,  which  demands  complementary  culture 
in  other  directions.  The  neglected  books  of  the  world 
are  histories  and  works  upon  moral  and  intellectual  phi- 
losophy. The  present  is  the  day  of  novels,  and,  what  is 
about  as  nearly  their  antipodes  as  possible,  scientific 
knowledge  and  culture.  That  history  in  whose  instruc- 
tive light  we  should  weave  the  history  of  our  own  time — 
that  history  through  which  we  make  the  acquaintance  of 
our  kind,  as  they  have  lived  and  acted  under  various  in- 
stitutions and  circumstances,  and  that  philosophy  by 
which  we  become  acquainted  with  ourselves,  and  our 
higher  powers  and  relations,  are  comparatively  little 
read.  It  is  in  these  works,  mainly,  that  the  power  of 
study  is  missed,  and  in  these  mainly  that  it  is  to  be  re- 
gained. We  say  this  very  decidedly,  and  yet  we  know 
that  there  are  men  whose  whole  life  is  here,  and  who 
stand  in  great  need  of  the  influences  of  poetry  and  fiction 
as  food  for  starved  imaginations.  No  man  liveth  by 
bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God.  We  need  food  from  every  side,  of 
every  kind,  and  the  man  who  finds  that  he  has  lost  that 
power  of  study  which  alone  can  seize  and  appropriate  it, 
should  win  it  back  by  patient  exercise. 

Literary  Virility. 
One  of  the  most  notable  characteristics  of  such  writers 
^as  Shakespeare,  Scott,  Thackeray,  and  Dickens,  is  what 
^"may  be  called,  for  lack  of  a  better  word,  vhility.  They 
write  like  men.  There  is  no  dandyism  or  dilettanteism 
about  them.  If  they  deal  with  the  passion  of  love,  they 
deal  with  it  heartily  ;  but  it  is  not  the  only  passion  which 


102  Every -Day   Topics. 

enters  into  their  work.  Hate,  revenge,  avarice,  ambi- 
tion, all  play  their  part.  Love  is  not  the  only  passion 
that  inspires  them.  It  is  not  regarded  as  the  begin-all, 
and  the  end-all  of  life.  They  deal  with  great  questions 
and  large  affairs.  They  find  themselves  in  a  world  where 
there  is  something  to  be  done  besides  dawdling  around 
petticoats  and  watching  the  light  that  dances  in  a  curl. 
They  do  not  exhaust  themselves  on  flirtations  or  in- 
trigues. They  enter  into  sympathy  with  all  the  motives 
that  stir  society,  all  the  interests  that  absorb  or  con- 
cern it,  and  by  this  sympathy  they  touch  the  universal 
human  heart.  Their  poems  and  novels  are  pictures  of 
life  in  all  its  phases  ;  and  the  homely  joys  of  a  cot- 
tager's fire-side,  the  humble  cares  and  ambitions  of  the 
simple  hind,  the  disgusting  "tricks  and  manners"  of 
socials  shams,  as  well  as  the  greedy  ambitions  of  the 
miser  or  the  politician,  are  depicted  with  the  same 
fidelity  to  fact  as  the  loves  and  relations  of  the  sexes. 

We  expect,  of  course,  that  a  man  will  write  of  that 
which  fills  him.  Out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh.  A  young  man  will  naturally  write 
of  love,  because  that  is  the  master  passion  with  him. 
Life  has  only  gone  to  that  extent  with  him.  It  would  be 
unnatural  for  him  to  write  of  much  else,  because  noth- 
ing so  powerful  as  love  has  thus  far  entered  into  his  life. 
It  is  the  most  virile  thing  that  he  can  do.  But  youth 
passes  away,  and,  with  it,  the  absorbing  character  of 
the  passion  of  love,  so  far  as  it  concerns  him.  Then 
come  to  him  the  great  affairs,  the  great  questions,  the 
great  pursuits  of  life.  For  him  to  revert  to,  and  try  to 
live  in,  this  first  period — to  heat  over  the  old  broth,  to 
thrash  over  the  old  straw,  to  simulate  transports  he  no 
longer  feels,  and  to  pretend  to  be  absorbed  by  the  petty 
details  of  boyish  courtship  and  girlish  ways  and  fancies 
—is  to  compromise,  or  sacrifice  his  manhood.     He  de- 


Literature.  103 

scends  in  this  to  the  work  of  a  school-girl,  who  strives 
to  anticipate  what  he  tries  to  remember.  He  turns  his 
back  upon  the  acting,  suffering  world  in  which  he  lives, 
with  all  its  hopes  and  despairs,  its  trials  and  triumphs, 
its  desires  and  disappointments,  its  questions  of  life  and 
death,  its  aspirations  and  temptations,  its  social,  polit- 
ical and  religious  tendencies  and  movements,  and  tries 
to  amuse  himself  and  the  world  by  puerilities  of  which 
he  ought  to  be  ashamed,  and  labors  strenuously  to  con- 
vict himself  of  the  lack  of  literary  virility. 

He  is  something  less  than  a  man  who  can  live  in  such 
a  world  as  this,  and  in  this  age,  and  find  nothing  better 
to  engage  his  pen  than  descriptions  of  ribbons,  pouting 
lips,  and  divine  eyes  ;  who  dwells  upon  the  manner  in 
which  a  woman  disposes  of  her  skirts,  or  complements 
the  color  upon  her  cheek  by  some  deft  way  of  wearing 
her  scarf,  and  makes  up  his  entire  work  of  the  stuff  that 
is  to  be  found  among  the  dreams  and  dalliances  of  the 
sexes.  There  is  quite  as  much  of  effeminacy  in  the  choice 
of  literary  material  as  there  is  in  the  mode  of  treating 
it  when  chosen.  Of  course,  the  man  who  chooses  small 
topics  and  small  material  is  the  very  man  to  treat  them 
in  a  small  way.  He  will  pet  a  phrase  as  he  will  the 
memory  of  a  pretty  hand.  He  will  toy  with  words  as  if 
they  were  tresses.  In  short,  he  will  be  a  literary  dandy, 
which  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  being  a  literary 
man. 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  literary  dandy  that  love  is  the 
only  available  material  for  the  novel  and  the  poem  ;  but 
if  he  will  go  back  to  the  works  of  those  who  are  named 
at  the  beginning  of  this  article,  he  will  recognize  the 
fact  that  the  characters  of  most  importance,  and  the 
incidents  of  most  significance  and  interest  in  them,  are 
those  with  which  the  passion  of  love  has  very  little  to  do. 
If  it  existed  at  all,  it  was  incidental  to  something  greater 


I  34  Every -Day    Topics. 

and  more  important.  Indeed,  we  should  say  that  th 
least  interesting  material  in  any  of  the  novels  of  Scott, 
Thackeray,  and  Dickens,  is  that  which  relates  specially 
to  the  sexual  relations.  Mr.  Pickwick  and  Captain 
Cuttle  are  worth  all  the  women  Dickens  ever  painted  ; 
and  the  women  of  Scott  are  more  interesting  in  them- 
selves than  in  any  of  their  tender  relations.  It  was  the 
literary  virility  of  these  men — their  solid,  sincere,  and 
consistent  manhood — that  made  them  great,  and  made 
them  universally  popular.  Where  would  they  be  to-day 
if  they  had  ignored  the  various  life  with  which  they  held 
immediate  relations,  and  confined  their  pens  to  the  de- 
piction of  creations  and  relations  which,  in  experience, 
they  had  forever  left  behind  ? 

If  any  reader  will  compare  the  scenes  of  the  Last 
Judgment,  as  conceived  and  represented  by  Michael 
Angelo  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  or  the  mag- 
nificent pictures  of  Titian  in  Venice,  or  the  masterly, 
but  coarse,  and  often  offensive,  productions  of  Rubens 
everywhere,  with  the  petty  prettinesscs  and  dainty  per- 
fection of  Meissonnier,  he  will  understand  what  we  mean 
by  literary  virility.  The  latter  painter  is,  in  art,  exactly 
what  the  dandy  is  in  literature.  Even  if  the  things  he 
does  are  well  done,  the  question  w^hether  they  are  worth 
doing  remains  to  be  answered.  Virility  in  art  is  more 
easily  to  be  detected — more  easily  demonstrable — than 
in  literature,  because  a  grand  result  can  be  brought  at 
once  under  the  eye  in  a  picture,  but  the  element  is  as 
truly  essential  and  masterful  in  one  as  the  other.  The 
difference  between  undertaking  to  paint  the  Godhead 
and  the  minute  delineation  of  a  chasseur — to  the  very 
sparkle  of  his  spur — is  the  difference  between  the  work 
of  a  man  and  that  of  a  dandy. 


Literature.  105 


Fiction. 

In  the  multiplied  discussions  of  the  nature  and  the  offices 
of  fiction,  it  is  singular  that  reference  is  rarely  made — 
almost  never  made — to  the  fictitious  portions  of  the 
Bible.  Every  year  or  two  the  critics  get  at  loggerheads 
over  what  is  legitimate  and  illegitimate  in  fiction,  over 
what  is  good  art  and  bad  art,  over  the  question  whether 
art  in  fiction  may  ever  properly  be  charged  with  the 
burden  of  a  moral  or  a  lesson.  There  are  some  who  go 
further  than  this,  who  go  so  far  as  to  question  whether 
religion  and  morality  are  legitimate  material  of  art. 
These  men  may  have  a  personal  interest  in  the  decision 
of  the  question,  and  we  are  inclined  to  believe  they  have 
such  an  interest.  It  is  quite  possible  that  people  who 
have  neither  religion  nor  morality  should  object  to  the 
legitimacy  of  material  which  they  would  be  obliged  to 
borrow. 

Aside  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  a  large  portion, 
and,  we  believe,  the  most  important  portion,  of  the  truth 
proclaimed  by  the  great  Master, — the  founder  alike  of 
our  religion  and  our  civilization, — was  delivered  in  the 
form  of  fiction.  The  "  certain  man  "  whom  he  used  so 
much  for  carrying  the  burden  of  his  truth  was  always  a 
fictitious  man.  A  more  symmetrically  designed,  and  a 
more  exquisitely  constructed  piece  of  fiction  than  the 
story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  does  not  exist  in  any  language. 
We  call  it  a  parable  because  in  one  field  of  life  it  repre- 
sents truth  in  another  field  of  life.  It  conveys  the 
truth  which  he  desired  to  convey  in  the  concrete.  The 
gospel  histories  are  begemmed  by  what  may  be  called, 
without  impropriety  or  irreverence,  novelettes,  and  they 
are  never  constructed  for  the  sake  of  their  art,  or  for 
beauty's  sake,  but  always  as  vehicles  for  conveying  im- 
portant moral  and  religious  truth  to  men.  Their  art  is 
5* 


io6  Every -Day   Topics. 

perfect,  simple  as  it  is,  but  they  assume  to  have  no 
reason  for  being  except  the  supreme  reason  of  use. 

The  oldest  novel  in  existence  is  probably  the  Book  of 
Job.  We  presume  there  may  be  some  men  left  who 
still  read  the  Book  of  Job  as  a  veritable  history,  but 
those  who  are  capable  of  judging  will  simply  place  it  at 
the  head  of  the  realm  of  fiction.  That  it  is  divinely  in- 
spired we  do  not  dispute.  Indeed,  the  establishment 
of  its  divine  inspiration  as  a  fact,  rather  than  the  accept- 
ance of  it  as  a  matter  of  faith,  would  only  strengthen 
the  position  we  have  always  held,  viz.,  that  the  highest 
fiction  is  that  which  the  most  competently  carries  the 
most  valuable  burden  of  truth.  The  writer  of  the  Book 
of  Job  was  a  man  who,  in  the  dawn,  as  it  were,  of  hu- 
man history,  revolved  in  a  catholic,  cultured  and  rev- 
erent mind  the  unequal  dealings  of  God  with  men. 
Why  did  the  good  man  have  trouble  ?  Job  was  an 
excellent  man,  "  perfect  and  upright,"  stripped  of  every 
good,  and  the  art  by  which  the  writer  presents  him 
as,  one  after  another,  his  possessions  are  taken  from 
him,  and  his  friends  discuss  with  him  the  great  problem 
that  vexes  him,  with  all  the  machinery  of  dialogues  be- 
tween the  Almighty  and  Satan,  and  the  Almighty  and 
Job  himself,  surpasses  all  the  art  of  later  times.  Such 
imaginations  and  such  descriptions,  such  conversations 
and  arguments,  such  marvellous  characterizations  as  are 
to  be  found  in  this  great  book  can  be  found  nowhere 
else  in  the  whole  range  of  literature.  It  is  a  book  that 
has  commanded  the  admiration  as  well  as  the  profound 
reverence  of  the  greatest  men  who  have  ever  lived,  and 
it  is  a  novel  in  all  its  essential  features,  even  though  we 
call  it  a  poem. 

The  Book  of  Revelation  is  a  novel,  so  far  as  it  is  an 
attempt  to  convey  truth  through  typical  forms  and  scenes 
and  events.     It  is  no  record  of  facts,  but  a  panoramic 


Literature.  107 

representation  of  conceptions  born  in,  and  addressed  to, 
the  imagination.  In  short,  it  is  a  creation  of  art — what- 
ever may  be  its  origin,  whether  divine  or  human — by 
which  certain  great,  shadowy  thoughts  and  ideas  are  at- 
tempted to  be  represented  to  the  mental  apprehensions 
or  the  faith  of  men.  There  are  many  devout  believers 
in  the  inspiration  of  the  ancient  Scriptures  who  regard 
the  story  of  the  creation  and  the  fall  of  Adam  rehearsed 
in  the  Book  of  Genesis  as  anything  but  a  literal  repre- 
sentation of  historic  facts.  The  essential  truth  is  in  the 
narrative,  but  it  is  represented  in  such  a  way  that  the 
simplest  mind  can  apprehend  and  make  use  of  it.  The 
Song  of  Solomon  is  a  very  exquisite  essay  in  the  art  of 
fiction.  If  the  Books  of  Esther  and  Ruth  are  historical, 
they  are  certainly  nothing  to  us  but  stories  with  morals, 
and  very  strong  and  beautiful  stories  they  are.  The 
names  of  Ahasuerus  and  Mordccai,  and  Haman  and 
Esther,  are  nothing  but  names  to  tlie  present  reading 
world,  which  mean  no  more  than  those  of  Daniel  Dc- 
ronda  and  Ralph  Nickleby  and  Clarissa  Harlowe.  Boaz 
and  Ruth  might  be  Abelard  and  Hcloise,  or  any  other 
lo\  crs.  The  two  stories  are  to  us  simply  stories,  having 
no  significance  particularly  as  history,  and  no  use,  save 
as  in  an  exquisite  form  of  art  they  convey  to  us  the 
moral  lessons  with  which  they  are  charged. 

Now,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  majority  of  literary 
critics  would  not  take  the  Bible  as  authority  for  anything  ; 
but  we  submit  that  a  book  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the 
best  civilization  the  world  has  ever  known,  that  has  held 
the  profound  reverence  of  the  noblest  minds  that  have 
ever  existed,  that  has  inspired  the  highest  art  of  eighteen 
centuries,  that  has  gathered  to  itself  the  tender  affec- 
tions of  countless  generations  of  men,  that  has  been  the 
fountain  of  eloquence  from  which  a  million  pulpits  have 
drawn  their  supplies,  that  is  so  high  and  characteristic 


io8  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

in  its  art  that  no  attempt  to  imitate  it  ever  has  risen 
above  the  seeming  of  burlesque,  is  well  worthy  of  the 
respect  of  literary  men  as  a  literary  authority. 

It  is  fair  to  conclude  that  when  fiction  is  used  in  the 
sacred  books  it  is  used  not  only  legitimately,  but  used  in 
the  best  way  it  can  be  used.  The  truth  is,  that  all  this 
talk  about  writing  stories  for  the  sake  of  the  stories, 
about  fiction  for  the  sake  of  art,  about  the  impropriety 
of  burdening  a  work  of  fiction  with  a  lesson  or  a  moral 
is  bosh  and  drivel.  We  do  not  dispute  at  all  that  a  story 
may  be  written  for  the  simple  purpose  of  amusing  the 
mind.  We  do  not  dispute  that  a  story  may  legitimately 
be  written  in  the  interest  of  art  alone.  What  we  main- 
tain is,  that  all  this  is  petty  business  when  compared 
with  the  supreme  uses  of  fiction,  viz.,  the  organization 
into  attractive,  artistic  forms  of  the  most  valuable  truths 
as  they  relate  to  the  characters  and  lives  and  histories 
of  men.  A  rose  is  beautiful  and  fragrant,  and  in  its 
beauty  and  fragrance  holds  the  justification  of  its  being. 
But  a  field  of  roses  would  make  a  poor  show,  even  in  the 
matter  of  beauty,  by  the  side  of  a  wheat-field,  every 
stalk  of  which  is  bending  with  its  burden  of  substantial 
ministry  to  the  wants  of  men.  We  simply  maintain  that 
the  wheat-field  is  a  better  production  than  the  rose-field. 
Let  men  raise  roses  if  they  can  do  no  better.  Let  them 
raise  pansies,  marigolds,  hollyhocks,  anything  they 
choose,  and  let  people  delight  in  these  who  may,  but 
don't  let  them  presume  to  deny  the  legitimacy  of  wheat- 
growing,  or  assert  the  illegitimacy  of  all  productions  except 
ilowers.  With  the  facts  relating  to  the  prevalent  bad  art 
of  stories  with  morals  we  have  nothing  to  do.  No  good 
moral  lesson  excuses  bad  art,  and  no  man  has  any  right  to 
burden  such  a  lesson  with  bad  art.  If  a  man's  art  is  not 
a  royal  vehicle  for  the  progress  of  the  moral  he  desires  to 
honor  and  convey,  then  he  has  no  call  to  be  a  novelist. 


Literature.  109 


Goodness  as  Literary  Material. 

We  can  hardly  imagine  anything  more  curious  as  a 
subject  of  inquiry  than  the  difficulty  experienced  by 
every  writer  of  fiction  in  the  attempt  to  paint  a  very  good 
man  or  woman.  It  seems  to  be  very  easy  to  depict 
wicked  people.  The  villains  of  the  play  and  the  novel 
appear  in  great  variety,  with  no  lack  of  types  of  the  finest 
interest.  Wickedness  seems  to  be  perennially  fresh,  as 
it  is  proverbially  engaging.  For  instance  :  it  would 
have  been  quite  impossible  for  John  Hay  to  write  an  ac- 
ceptable or  an  impressive  poem  about  a  sweet  Christian 
fellow  who  had  sacrificed  his  life  to  save  a  boat-load  of 
passengers  ;  but  he  could  paint  Jim  Bludso — a  bad  man 
— with  a  few  touches  that  can  never  be  forgotten.  If  he 
had  undertaken  to  describe  a  good  young  man,  who  did 
not  "  chew,"  or  drink,  or  swear,  who  taught  a  class  in 
the  Sunday  school,  and  who  lived  virtuously  with  his  one 
wife,  and  rose  at  last  into  an  act  of  heroism,  he  would 
not  have  found  ten  readers  ;  but  the  rough,  coarse,  pro- 
fane wretch,  who  had  one  wife  at  Natchez-under-the-hill, 
and  another  one  up  in  Pike,  becomes  at  once  a  memora- 
ble hero  in  his  hands.  With  all  that  may  legitimately 
be  said  against  Bret  Harte's  heroes  and  heroines,  there 
is  no  question  that  many  of  them  are  made  marvellously 
interesting  by  the  forms  of  wickedness  they  represent. 
This  much  is  true  at  least,  that,  as  literary  material,  the 
rough,  low  types  of  life  and  character  to  be  found  in 
California  and  on  the  border,  are  much  superior  to  the 
best  types  to  be  found  there. 

Perhaps  the  inquiry  into  the  reason  of  this  should  go 
deeper,  or  start  further  back.  It  might  be  well  to  ask 
why  it  is  that  some  of  the  most  interesting  people  we 
ever  met  were  scamps.  It  might  be  well  to  inquire  why 
some  of  the  best  men  we  know  are  the  least  intercstintr. 


1 10  Every -Day    Topics. 

It  might  be  instructive  to  learn  why  it  is  that  a  company 
of  virtuous  girls  will  be  attracted  by  a  man  whose  virtue 
they  have  reason  to  doubt,  in  the  presence  of  those  who 
are  known  to  be  men  of  purity  and  honor.  These  in- 
quiries might  show  us  that  goodness  is  not  only  less 
interesting  to  men  as  literary  material  than  wicked- 
ness, but  is  less  interestiiig  in  itself.  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  we  should  rarely  go  among  our  best  men  and 
women  for  our  most  interesting  characters.  Certainly 
we  should  not  go  among  the  membership  of  our  churches. 
There  are  churches  the  dead  level  of  whose  tasteless  and 
flavorless  Christianity  is  not  only  uninteresting  but  re- 
pulsive. Dr.  Eggleston,  in  some  of  his  Western  Metho- 
dist types,  gives  us  people  who  are  interesting,  but  their 
flavor  does  not  come  from  their  Methodism,  or  their 
goodness,  but  from  nature  and  character,  formed  under 
unusual  circumstances. 

There  are,  undoubtedly,  sufficient  reasons  for  the  un- 
lovely character,  or  the  unattractive  character,  of  many 
types  of  Christian  goodness.  There  are  brawling  types, 
abject  types,  fashionable  types,  childish  types,  that  of 
course  are  disgusting  to  all  healthy  minds.  Then  there 
is  the  type  of  goodness  that  is  framed  upon  the  moral 
law — built  up  upon  the  "  Thou  shalt  not" — a  goodness 
that  is  based  upon  repression  of  the  bad  rather  than  the 
development  of  the  good.  There  are  many  types  of 
Christian  goodness  which  betray  themselves  as  unnatural 
or  superficial,  as  having  their  basis,  not  in  a  living  prin- 
ciple, but  in  a  mechanical  plan  or  a  scheme  of  policy. 
Of  course  all  these  are  as  far  from  being  interesting  as 
they  can  be.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  a  character 
can  only  have  the  power  to  interest  us  when  it  is  alive, 
positive,  aggressive.  Any  life  that  is  interesting  must 
have  a  centre — not  extraneous — but  in  itself.  No  life 
inspired  and  conducted  by  outside  rules  can  possibly  be 


Literature.  1 1 1 

interesting  to  any  other  life.  What  this  or  that  man, 
whether  good  or  bad,  will  do  of  his  own  motion,  in  the 
circumstances  that  occasions  bring  around  him,  is  what 
we  are  interested  in.  If  we  know  that  he  is  guided  by  a 
set  of  rules,  that  he  is  the  subject  of  some  compact  or 
organization,  and  that  certain  penalties  hang  over  him 
if  he  fail  in  any  respect,  we  have  no  interest  in  him. 
The  eagle  caged  is  a  most  uninteresting  bird  ;  but  the 
eagle  in  a  cloud,  or  on  a  crag,  will  hold  the  eye  like  a 
star.  It  is  the  free  man  who  attracts  us,  and  we  are  not 
sure  that  a  good  deal  of  the  unattractiveness  of  goodness 
is  not  attributable  to  the  impression  that  it  is  con- 
strained. 

Every  wicked  man  has  his  own  private  principle  of 
wickedness.  He  is  endowed  with  certain  appetites  and 
passions — he  entertains,  privately,  certain  purposes,  de- 
sires, ambitions — and  we  feel  sure  the  moment  we  come 
into  contact  with  him,  that  he  will  be  sincere  and  con- 
sistent with  himself.  What  he  will  do — how  he  will  work 
out,  on  the  plane  of  his  individual  nature,  the  evil  that 
is  in  him — is  what  interests  us.  What  the  good  man 
will  do  we  already  know.  We  understand  the  rule  by 
which  he  conducts  his  life.  If  he  is  simply  a  moral 
man  we  understand  his  law.  If  he  is  a  religious  man, 
we  not  only  understand  his  law,  but  we  understand  all 
the  persuasives  and  dissuasives  which  lie  around  him  in 
the  institutions  and  creeds  to  which  he  has  subjected  his 
will,  so  that  he  only  becomes  particularly  interesting  to 
us  when  he  breaks  away  from  his  laws  and  defies  the  in- 
stitutions to  whose  yoke  he  had  bent  himself.  We  can 
never  be  particularly  interested  in  the  man  whom  we 
can  calculate  upon. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  some  will  say  that  we  are  inter- 
ested in  wicked  people  because  we  are  wicked — that  the 
wicked  engage  our  sygipathy  in  a  perfectly  natural  way, 


112  Every -Day   Topics. 

but  the  facts  will  not  sustain  the  theory.  Whenever 
goodness  becomes  apprehended  as  a  vital,  independent 
force  in  a  man,  working  its  way  naturally  out  in  all  rela- 
tions and  all  conduct,  when  it  becomes  aggressive  and 
ingenious  in  its  beneficence,  and  is  incalculable  in  its 
sacrifices  and  heroisms,  it  will  become  good  literary  ma- 
terial, and  not  before.  Whenever  goodness  crops  out 
in  a  bad  character,  as  it  often  does  in  one  of  Harte's 
heroes — when  it  appears  as  a  spontaneous  human  growth 
that  could  not  at  all  have  been  calculated  upon — how 
marvellously  engaging  it  is  !  But  when  it  is  made  to 
order  ;  when  a  novelist  sets  out  to  make  a  good  man  or 
a  faultless  woman,  how  sure  he  is  to  fail !  What  sorry 
muffs  are  all  the  particularly  good  men  and  women  whom 
the  novelists  have  presented  to  us !  They  cannot  possi- 
bly be  made  in  the  ordinary  way.  All  art  demands  a  fol- 
lowing of  nature.  Uncle  Tom  can  be  interesting  as  a  Chris- 
tian because  he  has  taken  his  Christianity  like  a  child,  or 
as  a  child  takes  its  mother's  milk.  He  has  imbibed  it. 
He  knows  little  or  nothing  of  dogma,  but  the  heart  and 
life  of  Christ  arc  in  him,  working  sweetly  out  through 
natural  channels  into  acts  and  effects  that  are  picturesque 
and  engaging.  Raphael  painted  some  of  the  sweetest  of 
his  Madonnas  from  peasant  mothers,  and  he  at  feast 
understood  that  wherever  he  found  the  best  human  type 
of  mother  and  child,  it  best  represented  the  divine. 

One  thing  is  at  least  sure  :  goodness  in  the  hands  of  a 
literary  man  must  not  be  of  the  type  that  is  formed  by 
creeds  and  institutions,  if  he  would  make  it  interesting. 
Whether  there  can  be  any  true  goodness  outside  of  these 
we  leave  the  dogmatist  and  casuist  to  decide.  With  that 
matter  we  have  nothing  to  do  in  this  article.  W'e  sim- 
ply say  that  art  can  never  be  effective  in  engaging  the 
interest  of  those  who  study  its  works,  if  it  strays  from 
the  natural  fountains  of  feeling  and  life.     The  goodness 


Literature.  1 1 3 

it  would  depict  must  be  innate  and  spontaneous,  work- 
ing incalculably  and  through  natural  channels,  a  law 
unto  itself,  or  it  can  never  be  made  to  appear  attractive 
and  picturesque.  So  long  as  it  is  in  any  way  identified 
with  well-known  laws  and  creeds  and  institutions,  it  is 
not  good  literary  material.  We  do  not  mean  by  this 
that  beautiful  Christian  characters  cannot  be  painted  so 
that  Christian  people  shall  be  sympathetically  interested 
in  them  ;  but  we  mean  that  the  art  instinct  rejects  them, 
and  that  they  cannot  be  so  painted  that  they  will  secure 
the  interest  of  the  universal  literary  mind. 

A  Word  about  Newspapers. 
In  all  the  discussion  inspired  by  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid's 
recent  suggestive  address  on  the  newspaper,  we  have 
seen  no  mention  made  of  a  topic  of  the  greatest  interest 
to  the  reading  public  and  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
the  newspaper  itself,  viz.,  the  practical  confusion  of 
moral  and  social  values  in  the  present  conduct  of  the 
public  press.  If  any  simple,  unsophisticated  person 
were,  for  the  first  time,  to  take  up  a  newspaper  and  to 
endeavor  to  judge  what  things  in  the  moral  and  social 
world  were  considered  of  the  greatest  importance,  what 
would  he  conclude,  judging  by  the  space  and  attention 
devoted  to  them  in  its  pages?  In  a  large  majority  of 
instances,  he  would  find  a  stingy  column  devoted  to  the 
discussions  of  a  social  science  convention,  and  half  a 
page  to  a  murder  or  a  boat  race.  He  would  find  a 
column  devoted  to  police  reports,  in  which  the  disgust- 
ing records  of  vice  and  its  awards  would  be  recorded  in 
detail,  while  the  sermons  of  a  Sunday,  from  the  best 
minds  in  the  country,  would  get  no  greater  space.  In 
the  editorial  discussions,  party  and  personal  politics 
would  be  found  to  predominate  over  everything  in  rela- 
tion to  religion,  morals,  education,  temperance,  science, 


114  Every -Day   Topics. 

and  the  whole  range  of  social  questions.  The  things  of 
great  moment  are  treated  as  if  they  were  of  the  small- 
est importance,  and  the  things  of  small  importance  are 
treated  as  if  they  were  of  the  greatest  moment. 

In  all  this  there  is  a  tremendous  confusion  of  values 
that  not  only  exhibits  the  worthlessness  of  the  newspaper 
as  a  standard,  but  vitiates  the  public  judgment.  The 
standard  is  unsound  and  the  influence  is  bad.  The  re- 
ply to  this,  of  course,  will  be  that  the  newspaper  en- 
deavors to  talk  about  that  which  the  public  likes  to  read 
about.  If  great  space  is  given  to  a  murder,  or  a  boat 
race,  it  is  because  people  in  the  mass  like  to  read  about 
these  things.  If  little  space  is  devoted  to  a  great  ser- 
mon, or  a  discussion  of  a  social  question,  it  is  simply 
because  nobody  cares  to  read  about  them.  Has  it  ever 
occurred  to  the  editor  who  would  put  this  in  plea  that  he 
has  had  something  to  do  in  ministering  to  this  depraved 
liking  for  things  that  are  valueless  ? — to  this  confusion 
of  values  in  the  public  mind  ?  We  certainly  know  of 
nothing  more  naturally  stimulative  of  the  love  of  low  ex- 
citements than  the  way  in  which  crime  and  vice  are 
treated  by  the  public  press.  The  way  in  which  a  nasty 
scandal  is  treated,  for  instance,  by  the  average  news- 
paper is  not  only  a  foul  disgrace  to  the  press,  but  a  most 
demoralizing  power  upon  the  public  mind.  It  is  a  put- 
ting forward,  by  all  the  power  of  startling  head-lines,  and 
a  sturdy  array  of  exclamation  points,  and  double-leaded 
details,  of  a  thing  of  shame  which  modest  people  do  not 
like  to  have  mentioned  in  their  homes  or  their  hearing. 
It  is  giving  the  first  place,  for  the  consideration  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  to  a  thing  that  ought  to  have  the 
last  place.  The  familiarity  with  vice  and  crime  and 
social  shame  that  has  been  acquired  in  this  country  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years  through  the  newspapers,  has  had 
the  effect  of  a  moral  scourge. 


Literature.  1 1 5 

But  we  did  not  intend  to  insist  on  the  moralities  par- 
ticularly. That  which  comes  under  the  notice  of  the 
newspaper  press  is  of  various  value,  considered  from  a 
thousand  points  beside  the  moral,  qnd  our  point  is, 
simply,  that  values  are  altogether  confused  in  their 
practical  treatment.  Those  matters  are  put  forward 
which  are  of  inferior  value,  and  those  are  subordinated 
which  are  of  superior  value,  until  the  newspaper  alto- 
gether ceases  to  be,  in  any  worthy  sense,  a  leader  of  the 
public  mind. 

If  the  newspaper  of  the  future,  which,  according  to 
Mr.  Reid,  is  to  have  Greens  and  Froudes  to  do  its  re- 
porting, shall  ever  be  reached,  it  will  be  a  very  different 
newspaper  from  that  of  to-day,  which  gives  up  its  re- 
porting to  men  who  are  neither  Greens  nor  Froudes. 
Ivlen  who  love  virtue  and  hate  vice,  and  men  who  have 
some  just  sense  of  moral  and  social  values,  will  devote 
their  reporting  mainly  to  that  which  will  educate  and 
improve  rather  than  confuse  and  degrade  their  readers. 
If  the  world  is  improving — if  we  are  making  any  reli- 
gious, moral,  and  social  progress — then  the  business  of 
the  newspaper  is  not  only  to  make  a  fair  record  of  that 
progress,  but  to  note  all  the  steps  and  exhibit  all  the  in- 
fluences by  which  it  is  reached.  In  faithfully  attending 
to  this  business,  it  will  have  neither  time  nor  space  for 
the  record  of  the  frivolities  and  vices  which  now  exclude 
so  much  that  is  of  superior  value  and  significance. 

The  great  tempter  of  the  newspaper  press  is  what  ia 
known  as  "  Enterprise."  If  anything  happens  that  peo- 
ple arc  curious  about,  even  if  it  should  be  of  small  im- 
portance, "  enterprise  "  dictates  that  it  should  be  looked 
up  and  written  down  to  its  uttermost.  It  is  in  "  enter- 
prise "  that  all  the  reporting  newspapers  try  to  outdo 
one  another,  and  it  is  in  this  attempt  to  outdo  one  an- 
other that  they  do  so  much  to  confuse  values  in  journal- 


!i6  Every- Day    Topics. 

ism.  One  newspaper  must  do  what  another  does  in  the 
fear  of  suffering  in  its  character  for  "  enterprise." 
Newspapers  do  not  try,  apparefitly,  to  reahze  their  own 
ideal,  but  to  outdo  each  other  in  "  enterprise."  We  do 
not  know  of  a  better  man  than  Mr.  Reid  to  undertake  a 
reaHzation  of  his  own  ideal,  which,  we  fancy,  does  not 
vary  very  materially  from  our  own,  and  to  spare  his 
"  enterprise "  for  great  things,  so  that  the  world  may 
have  one  paper  that,  with  a  thoroughly  catholic  spirit, 
carries  with  its  records  a  careful  balance  of  values,  and 
so  that  the  public  mind  shall  not  be  constantly  misled, 
and  that  all  that  ministers  to  progress  may  have  a  fair 
chance. 

Vulgarity  in  Fiction  and  on  the  Stage. 

The  average  playwright  has  a  fixed  opinion  that  certain 
definite  appeals  must  be  made  to  the  groundlings,  in  order 
to  produce  a  successful  play.  There  must  be  coarseness 
or  profanity,  or  the  half-disguised  obscenity  that  can  be 
put  forth  in  a  double  entente,  or  else  the  great  multitude 
will  not  be  satisfied.  As  a  consequence  of  this,  many 
ladies  do  not  dare  to  go  to  the  theatre,  or  to  take  their 
children  there.  There  is  no  question  that  these  objec- 
tionable elements  in  plays  have  kept  many  more  people 
out  of  the  theatre  than  they  ever  attracted  thither.  Peo- 
ple— even  vulgar  people — are  not  pleased  with  vulgarity, 
and  it  is  quite  worth  while  to  call  attention  to  the  things 
that  the  people  are  pleased  with,  both  in  the  fictions  of 
the  book  and  of  the  stage. 

We  have  had  a  lyrical  comedy  running  in  all  the  thea- 
tres of  the  country  during  the  last  season — "  Her  Ma- 
jesty's Ship  Pinafore  " — which  will  illustrate  a  part  of 
what  we  mean.  Since  we  began  to  observe  theatres  at 
all,  nothing  has  had  such  a  run  of  popularity  as  this. 
Young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  have  been  amused  by  it, 


Literature.  1 1 7 

and  there  is  not  a  word  in  it,  from  beginning  to  end, 
that  can  wound  any  sensibiUty.  It  is  a  piece  of  deHcious 
absurdity  all  through,  and  a  man  can  enjoy  two  hours  of 
jollity  in  witnessing  it,  which  will  not  leave  a  stain  upon 
him  anywhere.  It  is  simply  delightful — pure  fun — and 
the  most  popular  thing  that  has  appeared  on  the  stage 
for  the  last  ten  years.  We  call  attention  to  it  specially 
to  show  that  fun,  when  it  is  pure,  is  more  popular  a 
thousand  times  than  when  it  is  not.  Nothing  can  be 
more  evident  to  any  man  of  common  sense  than  that 
any  admixture  of  unworthy  elements  in  this  play  would 
damage  its  popularity.  What  is  true  of  this  play  is  true 
of  any  and  every  play.  There  is  no  apology  whatever 
for  making  the  stage  impure.  Even  vulgar  people  do 
not  seek  the  stage  for  impurity.  They  seek  it  for 
pleasure,  and  they  find  the  purest  plays  the  most  sat- 
isfactory, provided  only  that  the  pleasure -giving  ele- 
ment is  in  them.  A  playwright  who  is  obliged  to  resort 
to  coarse  means  to  win  the  applause  of  coarse  men, 
convicts  himself  of  a  lack  of  capacity  for  writing  a  good 
play. 

If  a  man  wishes  to  hear  high  moral  sentiments  ap- 
plauded as  they  are  applauded  nowhere  else,  let  him  go 
to  a  low  theatre.  When  the  villain  of  the  play  gets  his 
just  retribution,  and  the  hero,  standing  with  his  foot 
upon  his  neck,  above  his  prostrate  form,  makes  an  ap- 
propriate apostrophe  to  virtue,  then  the  house  comes 
down.  Indeed,  it  loses  no  opportunity  to  applaud  that 
with  which  its  daily  life  has  very  little  to  do,  as  if  it  were 
trying  to  make  up  by  its  votes  and  acclamations  for  the 
sins  and  tlic  remissnesses  of  its  practical  life.  It  takes  a 
pretty  pure  playwright  to  satisfy  an  audience  made  up 
largely  of  thieves  and  prostitutes. 

In  these  days,  tragedy  is  at  a  discount.  In  the  old 
times,  when  the  world  moved  slowly,  and  life  was  not 


ii8  Every- Day   Topics. 

overworked  or  torn  in  pieces  by  high  contending  pas- 
sions, men  and  women  Uked  to  have  their  sensibilities 
wrought  upon.  There  was,  at  any  rate,  a  desire  for  a 
different  play  from  that  which  modern  times  call  for. 
There  are  people  who  think  that  the  theatre  audience  is 
degraded  from  its  old  quality.  We  doubt  it.  We  have 
no  doubt,  indeed,  that  the  modern  audience  is  better 
than  the  ancient  one,  and  is  made  up  of  men  and  women 
of  a  highly  improved  culture.  The  times  have  changed, 
and  life  has  become  so  active  and  overburdened  and  so 
full  that  men  go  to  the  theatre  to  laugh.  The  one  thing 
that  they  need  most  is  forgetfulness  of  care,  in  innocent 
pleasure.  To  the  modern  man  and  woman,  life  is  a  tra- 
gedy. The  newspapers  are  full  of  tragedies.  We  swal- 
low them  every  morning  with  our  coffee.  What  we  ab- 
solutely need  is  fun,  jollity,  mirth,  forgetfulness  ;  and 
the  stage  must  adapt  itself  to  this  want  or  go  to  the 
wall.  The  writer  of  "  H.  M.  S.  Pinafore  "  is  a  public 
benefactor,  worthy  of  any  reward  we  can  make  him  ; 
and  Mr.  Sullivan  may  snap  his  fingers  at  the  stupid 
critics  who  accuse  him  of  having  stooped  from  his 
dignity  to  float  this  little  play  upon  his  excellent  music, 
for  he  has  won  the  gratitude  of  the  English-speaking 
world. 

It  is  with  novels  as  with  the  stage,  vulgar  people  do 
not  like  to  contemplate  vulgar  people.  In  the  novel, 
vulgar  people  delight  to  meet  with  gentlemen  and  ladies. 
They  have  enough  of  the  other  sort  at  home,  and  among 
their  friends.  They  would  like  to  get  into  better  society. 
They  wish  to  see  those  who  are  different  from  them- 
selves, and  in  different  circumstances. 

"  Mi-lord,"  said  a  soft-voiced  page,  dressed  in  blue  and  gold, 
entering  :   "  the  Ambassador  waits." 

Sir  Edward  turned  from  his  ivory  escritoire,  with  a  frown,  anU 
responded,  "  Bid  him  enter." 


Literature.  1 1 9 

At  this  moment,  the  Lady  Geraldine  rose  from  her  embroidery, 
and  with  a  fair  blush  mantling  her  classic  features,  swept  from  the 
apartment. 

"  Hold  !  "  said  Sir  Edward. 

The  lady  turned,  and  gave  him  a  single  glance  of  scorn,  as  she 
closed  the  door  and  sought  her  boudoir. 

It  is  the  vulgar  people  who  read  this  sort  of  stuff,  and 
they  read  it  because  it  represents  a  kind  of  life  quite 
absurdly  antipodal  to  their  own.  The  third  or  fourth- 
rate  novelist  who  produces  it  lives  nearer  to  the  people 
than  his  superiors,  and  knows  what  they  like.  It  is  true, 
too,  that  the  best  novelist  must  not  deal  with  vulgar  ma- 
terials too  exclusively.  No  matter  how  clever  he  may 
be,  it  will  not  do  for  him  to  forget  that  good  people  get 
tired  in  novels  of  the  same  people  of  whom  they  would 
get  tired  in  their  drawing-rooms,  and  particularly  of 
those  whom  they  would  never  receive  in  their  drawing- 
rooms.  They  get  tired  of  any  novelist  who  never  gives 
them  a  gentleman  or  a  lady. 

It  comes  to  this,  then,  in  the  novel  and  on  the  stage  : 
we  want  good  company  and  we  want  mirth.  We  want 
fun  and  we  want  it  pure.  The  theatre  thinks  that  the 
Church  is  hard  upon  it.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
novel-writer  thought  the  Church  was  hard  upon  him ; 
but  the  Church  now  not  only  reads  novels,  but  uses 
them  in  the  propagation  of  religious  ideas  and  religious 
living.  The  theatre,  for  many  years,  has  had  itself  to 
blame  for  the  attitude  of  the  Church  toward  it.  People 
arc  visiting  the  good  ship  Pinafore  now  who  never  en- 
tered a  theatre  before,  and  this  simply  because  it  minis- 
ters to  their  need  of  amusement  without  offending  their 
sensibilities  by  coarseness,  or  their  eyes  by  exhibitions 
that  are  only  at  home  in  a  vulgar  dance-house. 


I20  Every -Day   Topics. 


Literary  Materials  and  Tools. 

When  Bulwer  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  young  pop- 
ularity as  a  novel-writer,  before  Dickens  had  been 
heard  of  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  he  issued  his 
"  Ernest  Maltravers."  The  memory  of  that  book  has 
lingered  with  us  during  those  forty  years  as  a  glaring  in- 
stance of  an  appeal,  by  a  powerful  popular  author,  to  the 
coarser  and  more  destructive  passions  of  men  and  women. 
He  pictured  his  lovers,  brought  them  into  association, 
and  so  gave  direction  to  the  reader's  imagination  that  it- 
self, without  his  words,  pictured  the  fact  and  scene  of 
a  seduction.  It  was  the  theme  of  excited  common  talk 
among  the  young  men  of  the  time,  to  whom  it  became 
a  delicious  and  powerful  poison.  We  do  not  know 
whether  he  ever  repented  of  his  terrible  sin,  but  we 
know  that  he  did  incalculable  harm  by  it.  We  do  not 
know  whether  it  stands  in  his  latter  editions  just  as  it 
appeared  in  the  first  ;  but  there  are  many  elderly  men 
into  whose  memory  a  certain  page  of  that  book,  with 
convenient  rows  of  asterisks,  is  fairly  burned. 

The  question  naturally  arises  whether  sins  against  so- 
cial purity  are  legitimate  literary  material.  A  critic  of 
"  Roxy,"  in  one  of  the  newspapers,  objects  to  the  book 
on  account  of  the  relations  between  Mark  Bonamy  and 
Nance  Kirtley.  The  condemnation  is  quite  sweeping, 
and  the  only  inference  we  can  make  is,  that  sins  of 
impurity  are  not  legitimate  literary  material  —  in  the 
critic's  opinion.  Why?  we  ask.  What  is  there  in  hu- 
man life  that  is  not  legitimate  material  ?  Why  should 
the  novelist  have  the  free  handling  of  murder,  of  suicide, 
of  theft  and  robbery,  of  slander,  and  a  thousand  cruel- 
ties that  need  not  be  named,  and  be  forbidden  to  touch 
the  abuse  that  is  associated  with  the  strongest  and  holiest 
affections  and  passions  of  human  nature  ?     If  love  has 


Literature.  1 2 1 

dangers,  is  it  wrong  to  point  them  out  ?  Is  virtue  very 
much  nourished  nowadays  in  an  atmosphere  of  igno- 
rance ?  Is  there  any  such  thing  as  an  atmosphere  of 
ignorance  in  these  days  ? 

We  can  get  at  a  fair  conclusion  upon  this  matter  by 
comparing  the  effect  of  these  two  books  upon  the  mind. 
We  have  noted  the  effect  of  Bulwer's  book.  It  was  the 
intention  of  the  writer,  without  question,  to  excite  the 
prurient  imaginations  of  his  readers,  and  not  to  place 
the  deed  in  its  proper  relations  to  the  peace  and  well- 
being  of  the  parties  and  of  society.  If  any  one  can 
rise  from  the  perusal  of  "  Roxy"  without  realizing  that 
Mark  Bonamy  went  through  a  terrific  degradation,  and 
that  a  coarse  pleasure  was  purchased  by  him  at  a  price 
too  terrible  to  invite  imitation,  he  must  be  very  singu- 
larly constituted.  One  book  leaves,  or  is  calculated  to 
leave,  the  reader  in  love  with  vice  ;  the  other  leaves  or 
is  calculated  to  leave  him  horrified  by  it,  and  disgusted 
with  it. 

We  might  quote  the  freedom  with  which  the  Bible — 
a  book  intended  for  universal  use — employs  material  of 
this  sort ;  but  as  we  do  not  intend  to  appeal  to  the 
Bible  moralities  to  make  good  our  position,  we  simply 
allude  to  the  matter  and  drop  it.  We  maintain  that  all 
which  illustrates  human  nature  and  human  history  is 
legitimate  literary  material,  the  writer  being  simply 
bound — not  as  a  moralist,  but  as  a  literary  man — to 
represent  everything  in  its  proper  relation  to  the  scheme 
of  things  which  he  finds  established,  as  it  concerns  the 
happiness  and  well-being  of  the  individual  and  society. 
When  a  novelist  represents  vice  as  a  thing  that  in  any 
way  ''  pays,"  he  lies,  and  is  therefore  untrue  to  his  art. 
When  he  so  represents  the  sin  of  social  impurity  that  it 
shall  appear  more  attractive  than  repulsive,  more  de- 
lightful than  blameworthy— when  he  represents  it  shorn 


1 2  2  Every  -  Day   Top  ics. 

of  its  natural  consequences — half  harmless  to  the  guilty 
ones,  and  quite  venial  in  the  eye  of  society,  he  betrays 
his  untruth  to  literary  art,  and  reduces  and  vulgarizes 
the  standard  of  his  own  work.  This  may  be  said,  or 
pleaded  in  the  way  of  an  argunicntum  ad  hominem:  that 
it  does  not  become  an  editor  who  spreads  before  families 
of  readers  the  details  of  a  hundred  adulteries  and  seduc- 
tions and  other  crimes  against  social  purity  every  year, 
accompanied  with  the  usual  amount  of  reportorial  and 
judicial  jesting,  to  take  to  task  a  conscientious  novelist 
who  treats  the  crime  he  depicts  as  God  and  nature  dic- 
tate. 

There  is  another  point  about  which  there  are  contra- 
rieties of  opinion.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  a 
novel-writer  be  clerical  or  lay,  Christian  or  un-Chris- 
tian,  he  feels  deprived  of  the  use  of  his  legitimate  tools 
in  the  prohibition  placed  upon  profanity.  Some  writers 
will  not  accept  the  law,  because  only  by  the  use  of  what 
is  called  profanity  can  they  properly  represent  the  char- 
acters and  situations  in  hand.  We  are  not  alluding  to 
the  disgusting  **  blanks  "  of  Colonel  Starbottle,  or  to 
any  of  the  writers  whose  low  tastes  lead  them  to  prefer 
profanity  to  decency,  and  who  sympathize  with  it  to  the 
very  tips  of  their  tongues.  We  venture  to  suggest  that 
Mrs.  Stowe  and  Dr.  Egglcston  and  George  MacDonald 
feel  the  denial  of  the  use  of  profane  language  in  their 
novels  as  a  real  harm  to  their  art.  Men  must  speak  their 
vernacular  or  they  cannot  speak  naturally,  and  to  put 
"  dang  it"  into  a  man's  mouth  when  he  said  something 
else,  or  "the  deuce"  when  he  said  "the  devil,"  is  to 
dodge  and  palter  for  the  purpose  of  not  giving  offence. 

Still  we  think  a  man  is  quite  at  liberty  to  choose  here. 
There  is  nothing  vital  about  this  matter  of  tools.  The 
vitalities  attach  to  materials.  It  is  doubtless  better  that 
the  novelist  bow  as  far  as  he  can  to  the  popular  preju- 


Literature.  123 

dice  against  the  use  of  profane  language  in  literary  art. 
In  New  England  there  is  great  popular  reverence  for  the 
devil,  which  we  do  not  at  all  share  ;  so  it  is  probably  best 
to  present  him  always  in  a  disembowelled  form,  preserv- 
ing only  the  initial  and  final  consonants.  We  are  to  re- 
member that  there  is  a  considerable  portion  of  every 
community  which  believes  that  all  besides  themselves  are 
children,  and  are  to  be  treated  as  such — by  all  sorts  of 
publications  except  the  daily  newspapers.  These  seem 
to  be  quite  at  liberty  to  choose  whatever  material  comes 
to  their  hands — the  worse  the  better. 

Our  Garnered  Names. 
Great  genius  is  of  no  age  or  nation.  We  have  made 
stupendous  advances  in  all  possible  directions  within  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  yet  Bacon  still  stands  as  the 
proudest  name  among  English  philosophers,  and  Shak- 
spere  is  unequalled  among  English  poets.  It  would  be 
hard  to  name  a  living  poet — after  these  centuries  of  cul- 
ture— who  equals  Spenser,  yet  all  the  names  we  have 
mentioned  are  laid  among  the  very  foundations  of 
English  literature.  The  works  associated  with  them  are 
among  the  first  products  of  thought  and  art  in  the  per- 
fected English  tongue.  There  was,  of  course,  a  great 
amount  of  rubbish  produced,  which,  having  suffered  the 
fate  of  all  rubljish,  has  passed  out  of  existence.  But  the 
great  books  remain,  with  the  great  fact  that  neither 
science  nor  art,  neither  learning  nor  culture,  neither  po- 
litical nor  social  progress,  can  do  anything  to  reproduce 
genius.  Nay,  it  looks  aa  if  none  of  them  have  the  power 
to  assist  genius  in  its  development,  and  in  the  pro- 
ducts of  its  art.  Whenever  a  Shakspcre  appears,  he 
works  with  such  tools  as  lie  finds  ready  for  his  hand,  and 
produces  that  which  is  immortal.  It  matters  nothing 
into  what  period  of  a  nation's  literary  history  he  is  born, 


124  Every- Day   Topics. 

for  he  does  not  appear  as  the  ripe  product  of  a  great  age, 
but  as  a  special  creation  of  the  Almighty. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Bryant  naturally  calls  the  attention 
of  thoughtful  Americans  to  the  foundations  of  our  own 
literature,  and  leads  to  speculations  as  to  its  future. 
Certainly  the  first  years  of  our  national  life  were  not 
very  fruitful  in  a  literary  way.  Very  little  work  pro- 
duced in  the  seventeenth  century  is  worth  preserving, 
and  we  can  say  hardly  more  of  the  product  of  the  eigh- 
teenth. We  lay  the  foundations  of  our  houses  with  rub- 
ble up  to  the  level  of  the  earth,  and  the  first  products  of 
American  literature  can  hardly  be  called  anything  but 
rubble.  They  lie  in  the  catalogues  an  undistinguishable 
mass.  We  are  simply  aware  that  they  are  poor  and  im- 
perfect stuff;  but  during  this  unexpired  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, something  worthy  and  enduring  has  been  done.  It 
looks  like  a  growth.  It  looks  as  if  the  great  strides  we 
have  taken  were  the  result  of  long  climbing  to  a  high 
vantage  ground.  It  seems,  at  first  view,  as  if  we  may 
reasonably  expect  that  the  twentieth  century  will  as  far 
surpass  the  present  as  the  present  surpasses  the  past  in 
literary  production.  We  doubt,  however,  whether  we 
may  legitimately  come  to  any  such  conclusion.  The 
first  songs  of  any  nation  are  usually  the  freshest.  They 
work  up  the  local  material.  They  have  the  first  oppor- 
tunity of  response  to  the  native  influences.  There  is 
something  in  the  sturdy  freedom  of  the  formative  pro- 
cesses of  society  peculiarly  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  genius.  A  great  nation,  developing  itself  as  it 
were  out  of  the  ground,  is  a  good  deal  nearer  the  original 
fountains  of  inspiration  than  it  becomes  after  ages  of 
conventionality  and  artificial  life. 

All  this  is  true,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  we  have 
unconsciously  and  unappreciatingly  been  living  during 
the  most  memorable  age  of  American  literature.     Cer- 


Literature.  125 

tainly  that  age  cannot  be  contemptible  which  has  pro- 
duced Cooper  and  Irving,  Prescott  and  Motley  and 
Bancroft,  Bryant  and  Longfellow  and  Whittier,  Holmes 
and  Lowell,  Taylor  and  Stedman  and  Stoddard,  Haw- 
thorne and  Ticknor  and  Emerson,  not  to  mention  many 
eminent  names  in  other  departments  of  letters.  The  ac- 
count is  made  up  with  half  of  these.  We  can  expect  buf 
little  more  from  some  of  those  who  survive,  but  we  have 
enough  in  the  works  of  these  men  to  form  a  body  of 
literature  which  may  legitimately  be  designated  as 
American,  and  one  which  may  be  regarded  by  Amer- 
icans with  complacency.  It  is,  at  least,  pure.  Almost 
all  the  early  literatures  of  other  nations  possess  a 
gross,  fleshly  element,  which  is  entirely  lacking,  and 
which  would  not  be  tolerated,  in  ours.  It  is  true  that 
our  literature  is  the  product  of  a  branch  of  English  cul- 
ture. We  have  not  come  out  from  savagery  into  civili- 
zation, with  a  stock  of  legends  and  myths  on  which  to 
build  a  characteristic  literature,  but  what  Hawthorne 
and  Whittier  have  done  and  others  have  attempted, 
shows  that  we  possess  a  mine  of  quaint,  strange  history 
which  will  be  worked  thoroughly  hereafter.  We  have 
lacked  a  mellow,  hazy  past — a  background  for  our  pic- 
tures—and in  the  necessity  of  painting  our  surroundings 
and  drawing  our  inspiration  from  the  present,  we  have 
unconsciously  been  forming  a  background  for  those  who 
are  to  succeed  us.  We  do  not  Ijclicvc  the  time  will  ever 
come  when  Hawthorne's  interpretations  of  colonial  his- 
tory will  cease  to  be  interesting,  when  Whittier's  lyrics 
will  cease  to  inspire,  when  Bryant's  sweet  and  solemn 
voicing  of  nature's  meanings  and  life's  mysteries  will 
fail  in  their  music  to  the  ears  of  men,  when  Longfellow's 
psalms  of  life  will  not  meet  with  a  response  in  the  souls 
of  the  people.  The  poets  who  are  so  new  to  us,  though 
so  much  beloved,  are  to  be  the  old  poets  by  and  by,  and 


1 26  Every- Day   Topics. 

\vc  suspect  that  the  future  critic  will  come  back  to  thes? 
days,  revel  in  their  literary  glories,  and  contrast  his  own 
degenerate  contemporaries  with  the  hearty  and  homely 
singers  of  this  blessed  early  time. 

Of  one  thing  we  maybe  reasonably  sure,  viz.,  that 
when  the  genuine  geniuses  of  this  period  shall  be  appre- 
ciated at  their  full  value,  and  the  names  we  have  re- 
hearsed shall  have  become  classic,  their  countrymen  will 
have  ceased  discussing  Poe  and  Thoreau  and  Walt 
Whitman.  Why  an  age  which  can  produce  such  a  poet 
as  Bryant,  who  is  as  healthy  and  health-giving  in  every 
line  as  the  winds  that  soar  over  his  native  hills,  can  be 
interested  in  the  crazy  products  of  a  crazy  mind,  so  far 
as  to  suppose  that  they  have  any  poetry  in  them,  or  any 
value  whatever,  except  as  studies  in  mental  pathology, 
we  cannot  imagine.  How  an  age  that  possesses  a  Long- 
fellow and  an  appreciative  ear  for  his  melody  can  tol- 
erate in  the  slightest  degree  the  abominable  dissonances 
of  which  Walt  Whitman  is  the  author,  is  one  of  the  un- 
solved mysteries.  There  is  a  morbid  love  of  the  ec- 
centric abroad  in  the  country  which,  let  us  hope,  will 
die  out  as  the  love  of  nastiness  has  died  out.  At  present 
we  say  but  little  about  our  immortals,  and  give  ourselves 
over  to  the  discussion  of  claims  of  which  our  posterity 
will  never  hear,  or  of  which  they  will  only  hear  to  wonder 
over,  or  to  laugh  at. 

Is  IT  Poetry? 
Mr.  Walt  Whitman  advertises,  through  his  friends, 
that  the  magazines  send  back  his  poetry.  Why  do  they 
do  it?  Is  it  because  they  are  prejudiced  against  the 
writer  ?  Is  it  because  they  have  no  respect  for  liis 
genius,  no  admiration  for  his  acquirements  ?  No  ;  on 
the  whole,  they  like  him.  They  believe  him  to  be 
manly,  bright,  and  erudite,  but  they  have  a  firm  con- 


Literature.  127 

viction  that  his  form  of  expression  is  illegitimate — that 
it  has  no  right  to  be  called  poetry  ;  that  it  is  too  involved 
and  spasmodic  and  strained  to  be  respectable  prose, 
and  that  there  is  no  place  for  it,  either  in  the  heaven 
above,  or  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  waters  under 
the  earth.  If  we  could,  by  any  sort  of  chemistry,  mix 
the  rhapsodical  passages  of  Carlyle's  and  Emerson's 
prose  together,  we  should  have  a  pretty  near  approach 
to  Walt  Whitman's  verse.  It  is  simply  rhapsodical 
prose,  with  a  capital  letter  to  head  the  lines.  There  is 
no  attempt  at  rhythm,  no  attempt  at  rhyme,  which  would 
bring  it  within  the  domain  of  "  numbers,"  and  no  even 
strength  and  flow  that  would  make  good  its  claim  to  be 
elegant  prose.  What  is  it  ?  Is  it  prose-poetry  or  poetic 
prose  ?  Is  it  something  outside  of  both — a  new  thing, 
as  yet  unnamed,  the  outgrowth  of  a  new  genius,  and  the 
inauguration  of  a  new  era  of  expression  ? 

Let  us  try  a  little  experiment.  We  have  before  us 
two  of  Mr.  Emerson's  books — his  latest,  and  his  "  Con- 
duct of  Life."  From  these  most  excellent  productions 
let  us  cull  a  few  passages  in  Walt  Whitman's  style  : 

"  Our  Copernicnn  globe  is  a  great  factory  or  shop  of  power  ; 

"  With  its  rotating  constellations,  times,  and  tides. 

"  The  machine  is  of  colossal  size  ;  the  diameter  of  the  water- 
wheel,  the  arms  of  the  levers,  and  the  volley  of  the  battery, 

"  Out  of  all  mechanic  measure  ;  and  it  takes  long  to  understand 
its  parts  and  workings. 

"  This  pump  never  sucks  ;  these  screws  are  never  loose  ;  thia 
machine  is  never  out  of  gear. 

"  The  vat,  the  piston,  the  wheels  and  tires  never  wear  out,  but 
are  self-repairing. 

"  Is  there  any  load  which  water  cannot  lift  ? 

"  If  there  be,  try  steam  ;  or,  if  not  that,  try  electricity. 

"  Is  there  any  exhausting  of  these  means  ? 

"  Measure  by  barrels  the  spending  of  the  brook  that  runs 
through  your  field. 


128  Every -Day   Topics. 

"  Nothing  is  great  but  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  nature. 
"  She  shows  us  only  surfaces,  but  she  is  million  fathoms  deep. 
"  What  spaces  !  what  durations!  dealing  with  races  as  merelj 
preparations  of  somewhat  to  follow." 

And  again,  Emerson  ; 

"  A  strenuous  soul  hates  cheap  successes. 

"  It  is  the  ardor  of  the  assailant  that  makes  the  vigor  of  the 
defender. 

"  The  great  are  not  tender  at  being  obscure,  despised,  in- 
sulted. 

"  Such  only  feel  themselves  in  adverse  fortune. 

"  Strong  men  greet  war,  tempest,  hard  times,  which  search  till 
they  find  resistance  and  bottom. 

"  Periodicity,  reaction,  are  laws  of  mind  as  well  as  of  matter. 

"  Bad  kings  are  generous  helpers,  if  only  they  are  bad 
enough." 

And  again  : 

"  To  this  material  essence  answers  truth  in  the  intellectual 
world  ; 

"Truth,  whose  centre  is  everywhere  and  its  circumference  no- 
where ;  whose  existence  we  cannot  disimagine — 

"  The  soundness  and  health  of  things,  against  which  no  blow 
can  be  struck,  but  it  recoils  on  the  striker. 

"  Truth,  on  whose  side  we  always  heartily  are." 

Even  Walt  Whitman's  propensity  for  catalogues  can 
be  matched  in  Mr.  Emerson's  prose,  as  witness  : 

"  In  Boston,  the  question  of  life  is  the  names  of  eight  or  ten 
men. 

"  Have  you  seen  Mr.  Allston,  Dr.  Channing,  Mr.  Adams,  Mr. 
Webster,  Mr.  Greenough  ? 

"  Mave  you  heard  Everett,  Garrison,  Father  Taylor,  Theodore 
Parker  ? 

"Have  you  talked  with  Messieurs  Turbinewheel,  Summit 
level,  and  Locofrupees  ? 

"  Then  you  may  as  well  die." 


Literature.  1 29 

And  again  the  catalogue  : 

"  You  shall  not  read  newspapers,  nor  politics,  nor  novels; 

"  Nor  Montaigne,  nor  the  newest  French  book. 

"  You  may  read  Plutarch,  Plato,  Plotinus,  Hindoo  mythology, 
and  ethics. 

"  You  may  read  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Ben  Jonson,  Milton — 
and  Milton's  prose  as  his  verse. 

"  Read  Collins  and  Gray,  read  Hafiz  and  the  Trouvers, 

"Nay,  Welsh  and  British  mythology  of  Arthur,  and  (in  your 
ear)  Ossian. " 

We  have  said  that  if  we  could,  by  some  sort  of  chem- 
istry, mix  Carlyle's  and  Emerson's  rhapsodical  prose,  we 
could  come  very  near  to  an  imitation  of  Walt  Whitman's 
poetry,  for  the  man  has  a  strong  individuality,  and  is 
more  robust  than  Emerson.  He  is  not  so  fine  of  consti- 
tutional fibre,  not  so  fine  of  culture.  He  has  a  rough 
vigor,  and  a  disposition  to  involutions  of  language  quite 
characteristic  of  Carlyle  and  never  witnessed  in  Emer- 
son ;  yet,  as  we  quote  Walt  Whitman  hereafter,  we 
think  the  reader  will  be  surprised  with  the  resemblance 
which  his  work  bears  to  the  passages  wc  have  quoted 
from  Emerson's  prose — passages  which  mount  toward 
poetry,  and  which,  as  they  burst  out  from  the  even  fiow 
of  his  graceful  pen,  remind  one  of  the  occasional  blow- 
ing of  a  whale  on  a  sunny  sea,  while  the  great  fish  keeps 
steadily  on  in  his  element.  If  he  were  to  lie  still  and 
blow  all  his  life-time,  and  say  to  the  nations,  "  lo  !  this 
is  poetry  !  "  the  nations  would  pretty  unanimously  de- 
clare that  there  was  something  the  matter  with  the  fish. 
Particularly  would  this  be  the  case  if  he  had  already  put 
into  form  some  of  the  most  beautiful  poems  in  the  lan- 
guage, and  thus  declared  what  he  considered  true  poetry 
to  be. 

Before  Walt  Whitman,  let  us  try  a  little  of  Carlyle,  in 
6* 


1 30  Every-Day   Topics. 

order  to  justify  our  statement,  once  repeated,  concern« 
ing  the  analogies  existing  between  the  works  of  the  two 
men.     This  from  *'  Sartor  Resartus"  : 

"  Who  am  I  ?     What  is  this  me  ? 

"  A  voice,  a  motion,  an  appearance  ; 

"  Some  embodied,  visualized  idea  in  the  Eternal  Mind? 

"  Cogito^  ergo  sum.  Alas!  poor  cogitator,  this  takes  us  but  a 
little  way. 

"Sure  enough,  I  am,  and  lately  was  not;  but  whence,  how, 
whereto  ? 

"  The  answer  lies  around,  written  in  all  colors  and  motions, 
uttered  in  all  tones  of  jubilee  and  wail. 

"  In  thousand-fingered,  thousand-voiced,  harmonious  nature. 

"  But  where  is  the  cunning  eye  and  ear  to  whom  that  God- 
written  Apocalypse  will  yield  articulate  meaning  ? 

"  We  sit  in  a  boundless  phantasmagoria  and  dream-grotto. 

"  Boundless,  for  the  faintest  star,  the  remotest  country,  lies  not 
even  nearer  the  verge  thereof,"  etc. 

And  again,  Carlyle  : 

"  Thus,  like  some  wild-flaming,  wild-thundering  train  of  Heav- 
en's artillery, 

"Does  this  mysterious  mankind  thunder  and  flame,  in  long- 
drawn,  quick-succeeding  grandeur  through  the  unknown  deep! 

''  Thus,  like  a  God-created,  fire-breathing  spirit-host,  we  emerge 
from  the  Inane  ; 

"  Haste  stormfully  across  the  astonished  earth,  then  plunge 
again  into  the  Inane. 

"  Earth's  mountains  are  levelled,  and  her  seas  filled  up  in  our 
passage. 

"  Can  the  earth,  which  is  but  dead  and  a  vision,  resist  spirits 
which  have  reality  and  are  alive  ? 

"  On  the  hardest  adamant,  some  footprint  of  us  is  stamped  in. 

"  The  last  rear  of  the  host  will  read  traces  of  the  earliest  van. 

"  But  Nvhence  !     Oh,  Heaven  !  whither  ?  " 

And  now,  having  given  a  taste  of  Emerson's  and  Car- 
lyle's  poorest  prose — for  this  is  what  it  really  is — a  prose 


Literature.  1 3 1 

which  should  never  be  chosen  by  any  young  man  for  a 
model,  let  us  dip  into  the  pages  of  Walt  Whitman,  and 
see  if  it  be  any  better  or  greatly  different.  We  think  it 
will  be  found  that  what  Whitman  calls  in  his  own  verse 
"  songs,"  is  very  like  these  passages  in  form,  and  possi- 
bly inferior  to  them  in  quality.     We  quote  Whitman  : 

''  How  beggarly  appear  arguments  before  a  defiant  deed  ! 

'*  How  the  floridness  of  the  materials  of  cities  shrivels  before  a 
man's  or  woman's  look  ! 

"All  waits  or  goes  by  default  till  a  strong  being  appears  ; 

"  A  strong  being  is  the  proof  of  the  race,  and  of  the  ability  of 
the  universe  ; 

"  When  he  or  she  appears,  materials  are  overawed. 

"  The  dispute  on  the  soul  stops  ; 

"And  old  customs  and  phrases  are  confronted,  turned  back, 
or  laid  away." 

Again  Whitman,  in  a  complete  poem,  which  he 
entitles  "  Thoughts  :  " 

"  Of  ownership  ;  as  if  one  fit  to  own  things  could  not  at  pleasure 
enter  upon  all,  and  incorporate  them  into  himself  or  herself 

"  Of  water,  forests,  hills  ; 

"  Of  the  earth  at  large,  whispering  through  medium  of  mo  ; 

"  Of  vista.  Suppose  some  sight  in  arriere,  through  the  forma- 
tive chaos,  preserving  the  growth,  fulness,  life,  now  attained  on 
the  journey. 

"  (But  I  see  the  road  continued,  and  the  journey  ever 
continued  ;) 

— "Of  what  was  once  lacking  on  earth,  and  in  due  time  has 
become  supplied,  and  of  what  will  yet  be  supi)lied. 

"  Because  all  I  see  and  know  I  believe  to  have  purport  in 
what  will  yet  be  supplied." 

And  now,  for  a  purpose,  vvc  quote  one  of  Whitman's 
latest  "  sontrs  :  " 


132  Every- Day   Topics. 


"  TO   A   LOCOMOTIVE   IN    WINTER. 

"  Thee  for  my  recitative! 

"  Thee  in  the  driving  storm,  even  as  now — the  snow — the 
winter  day  declining  ; 

"  Thee  in  thy  panoply,  thy  measured  dual  throbbing,  and 
thy  beat  convulsive  ; 

"  Thy  black  cylindric  body,  golden  brass  and  silvery  steel ; 

"  Thy  ponderous  side-bars,  parallel  and  connecting  rods 
gyrating,  shuttling  at  thy  sides  ; 

"Thy  metrical,  now  swelling  pant  and  roar — now  tapering  in 
the  distance  : 

"  Thy  great  protruding  head-light  fix'd  in  front ; 

"  Thy  long,  pale,  floating  vapor-pennants,  tinged  with  delicate 
purple  ; 

"  The  dense  and  murky  clouds  out-belching  from  thy  smoke- 
stack ; 

"  Thy  knitted  frame — thy  springs  and  valves — the  tremulous 
twinkle  of  thy  wheels  ; 

''The  train  of  cars  behind,  obedient,  merrily  following, 

"  Througli  gale  or  calm,  now  swift,  now  slack,  yet  steadily 
careering  : 

"  Type  of  the  modern  !  emblem  of  motion  and  power  !  pulse 
of  the  continent ! 

"  For  once,  come  serve  the  Muse,  and  merge  in  verse,  even 
as  here  I  see  thee, 

"With  storm,  and  buffeting  gusts  of  wind,  and  falling  snow  ; 

"By  day,  thy  warning,  ringing  bell  to  sound  its  notes, 

"By  night,  thy  silent  signal  lamps  to  swing. 

"  Fierce-throated  beauty  ! 

"  Roll  through  my  chant,  with  all  thy  lawless  music,  thy  swing- 
ing lamps  at  night  ; 

"Thy  piercing,  madly-whistled  laughter,  thy  echoes  rousing 
all  ; 

"  Law  of  thvself  complete,  thine  own  track  firmly  holding; 

"  (No  sweetness  debonair  of  tearful  harp  or  glib  piano  thine), 

"  Thy  trills  of  shrieks  by  rocks  and  hills  return'd, 

"  Launch'd  o'er  the  prairies  wide — across  the  lakes, 

"To  the  free  skies,  unpent,  and  glad,  and  strong." 


Literature.  133 

The  reader  will  notice  how  much  more  rhythmical 
this  is  than  the  quotations  that  preceded  it — how  much 
better  it  is,  in  every  respect,  in  consequence,  and  how 
fine  and  strong  the  last  three  lines  are,  which  are  good, 
honest,  decasyllabic  verse.  The  man  is  capable  of 
poetry,  and  always  ought  to  have  written  it.  The  best 
that  he  has  done  has  been  to  set  down,  in  the  roughest 
condition,  the  raw  material.  Other  men  have  done  the 
same  thing  better,  and  never  dreamed  that  they  were 
writing  "  songs."  Even  a  "chant"  has  to  be  rhythmi- 
cally sung,  or  it  cannot  be  sung  at  all.  The  materials 
in  a  butcher's  stall  and  a  green-grocer's  shop  contain  the 
possibilities  and  potencies  of  a  dinner,  but  we  do  not 
see  any  poetry  in  them  until  they  are  cooked  and  served 
to  handsomely  dressed  men  and  women,  and  come  and  go 
upon  the  table  in  rhythmical  courses,  yielding  finest  nutri- 
ment and  goodliest  flavors.  There  is  no  melody  without 
rhythm,  and  a  song  must  be  melodious.  Emerson  says 
that  "  metre  begins  with  tlie  pulse-bcat,"  and  quotes 
Victor  Hugo  as  saying  :  "  An  idea  steeped  in  verse  be- 
comes suddenly  more  incisi\e  and  more  brilliant  ;  the 
iron  becomes  steel."  Here  is  a  distinction,  certainly, 
between  prose  and  verse.  He  quotes,  too,  one  who  says 
that  Lord  Bacon  "loved  not  to  see  poesy  go  on  other 
feet  than  poetical  dactyls  and  spondees  ; "  while  Ben 
Jonson  said  "  that  Donne,  for  not  keeping  of  accent, 
deserved  hanging."  If  he  had  only  quoted  these  sayings 
to  Walt  Whitman  in  that  early  letter,  should  we  not  all 
have  been  richer  by  the  sum  of  a  poet  ? 

We  are,  perhaps  giving  too  much  space  to  this  article, 
but  the  idea  is  sought  to  be  conveyed  by  Walt  Whit- 
man's friends  that  he  is  badly  used — that  a  great  genius 
is  sadly  misunderstood  or  neglected.  We  have  written 
this  because  no  one  else  has  written  it.  We  have  re- 
frained from  citing,  or  even   alluding   to,  those   portions 


1 34  Every -Day   Topics. 

of  his  early  book  which  are  most  open  to  criticism,  and 
especially  those  portions  of  which,  in  the  subsidence  oi 
his  grosser  self,  he  must  now  be  ashamed.  We  have 
desired  to  represent  him  at  his  purest  and  best,  and 
with  none  but  the  kindliest  feelings  toward  him,  and  the 
heartiest  wishes  for  his  good  fame.  We  believe  that  in 
his  theories  and  performances  he  is  radically  wrong — 
that  he  is  doing  nothing  but  advertising  himself  as  a  lit- 
erary eccentric,  and  that  he  ought  to  have,  and  will 
have,  no  following. 


CERTAIN   VIRTUES    AND  VIRTUOUS 
HABITS. 

Character,  and  what  Comes  of  It. 

ABOVE  all  other  things  in  the  world,  character  has 
supreme  value.  A  man  can  never  be  more  than 
what  his  character — intellectual,  moral,  spiritual — makes 
him.  A  man  can  never  do  more,  or  better,  than  deliver, 
or  embody,  that  which  is  characteristic  of  himself.  All 
masquerading  and  make-believe  produce  little  impres- 
sion, and,  in  their  products  and  results,  die  early.  Noth- 
ing valuable  can  come  out  of  a  man  that  is  not  in  him, 
embodied  in  his  character.  Nothing  can  be  more  un- 
philosophical  than  the  idea  that  a  man  who  stands  upon 
a  low  moral  and  spiritual  plane  can  produce,  in  litera- 
ture or  art,  anything  valuable.  He  may  do  that  which 
dazzles  or  excites  wonder  or  admiration,  but  he  can  pro- 
duce nothing  that  has  genuine  value,  for,  after  all,  value 
must  be  measured  by  the  power  to  enrich,  exalt,  and 
purify  life.  If  art  were  an  end,  in  itself — if  there 
were  any  meaning  in  the  phrase  "  Art  for  art's  sake" — 
then  what  we  say  about  character  would  not,  or  need 
not,  be  true  ;  but  art  is  not  an  end  in  itself  any  more 
than  milk,  or  flannel,  or  tilth,  or  harvest.  The  further 
art  is  removed  from  ministry,  the  more  it  is  divorced 
from  it,  the  more  illegitimate  does  it  become.  Pyro- 
techny  attracts  many  eyes,  and  may  excite  a  great  deal 
of  wonder  and  admiration,  but  when  we  talk  about  tlie 


136  Every -Day    Topics. 

value  of  fire,  we  only  think  of  its  service  in  the  furnace 
and  on  the  hearth. 

It  is  claimed  by  a  certain  class  of  critics  that  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  character  of  an  artist  or  a  writer. 
They  forget  that  a  knowledge  of  a  man's  character  is  a 
short  cut  to  a  correct  judgment  of  his  work.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  know  of  Edgar  A.  Poe  that  he  was  a  man 
of  weak  will,  without  the  mastery  of  himself — a  dissi- 
pated man — a  man  of  morbid  feeling — a  self-loving  man, 
without  the  wish  or  purpose  to  serve  his  fellows — to 
know  that  he  could  never  write  a  poem  that  would  help 
anybody,  or  write  a  poem  that  possessed  any  intrinsic 
value  whatever.  His  character  was  without  value,  and, 
for  that  reason,  he  was  without  the  power  of  ministry. 
His  character  was  without  value,  and  nothing  of  value 
could  come  out  of  it.  His  poems  are  one  continued, 
selfish  wail  over  lost  life  and  lost  love.  The  form  of  his 
art  was  striking,  but  the  material  was  wretchedly  poor  in 
everything  of  value  to  human  life.  No  human  soul  ever 
quotes  his  words  for  comfort  or  for  inspiration.  Byron 
is  a  more  conspicuous  example  of  the  effect  of  poor  or 
bad  character  upon  art  than  Poe.  He  Avas  immensely 
greater  than  Poe  in  genius,  stronger  in  fibre,  broader  in 
culture,  and  bolder  in  his  vices.  He  embodies  his  char- 
acter in  his  verse,  with  great  subtlety  and  great  in- 
genuity. Fifty  years  ago,  he  was  read  more  than  any 
other  poet.  Young  men  drank  the  poison  of  his  Don  Juan 
with  feverish  lips,  but,  the  draught  over,  the  book  never 
was  taken  up  again.  He  wrote  wonderful  verses,  and 
some  of  them,  written  under  certain  pure  and  high  in- 
spirations, assert  his  claim  to  greatness  ;  but,  as  a  whole, 
the  works  of  Byron  have  gone  out,  and  are  hardly  read  at 
all  in  these  days. 

Our  own  Bryant,  and  Longfellow,  and  Whittier,  and 
Holmes,  and  Lowell  are  all  men  of  character,  and  the 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.      137 

outcome  of  their  art  is  as  hearty  and  healthy  as  a  moun- 
tain wind.  Knowing  any  one  of  these  men  is  to  know 
that  their  work  is  good.  There  is  more  of  the  element 
of  ministry  in  Longfellow's  "  Psalm  of  Life"  than  in  all 
that  Byron  and  Poc  ever  wrote.  Value  in  character 
makes  value  in  verse.  Value  in  character  makes  value 
in  pictures,  in  sculptures,  in  all  embodiments  of  art.  It 
is  vain  to  talk  about  equalling  what  we  call  "  The  Old 
Masters  "  in  art,  until  we  can  equal  the  old  masters  in 
character.  When  we  have  a  race  of  artists  who  are  as 
religious,  as  self-devoted,  as  high-minded,  and  as  fully 
surrendered  to  the  divinest  inspirations  as  the  old  masters 
were,  we  shall  have  young  masters  who  will  be  quite  their 
equals.  Petty  painting  is  the  offspring  of  petty  char- 
acter. Artists  cannot  lift  their  work  without  first  lifting 
themselves.  It  is  impossible  that  a  thoroughly  bad  man 
should  be  a  good  artist  of  any  sort,  for  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, we  repeat,  that  the  values  of  art  all  rest,  and  al- 
ways rest,  upon  its  power  of  ministry.  Art  is  simply  a 
vehicle  for  conveying  the  values  of  character  to  the  lives 
of  men,  and  when  there  arc  no  values  of  character,  there 
is  nothing  to  be  conveyed,  no  matter  how  beautiful  or 
noteworthy  the  vehicle  may  be.  Great  moral  harm  is 
often  done  by  studied  and  systematic  dissociation  of  an 
author  or  an  artist  with  his  work.  We  are  told  that  we 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  writer  or  the 
painter  ;  wc  have  only  to  do  with  what  he  produces. 
This  may  be  true  and  right  to  a  certain  extent,  but  what 
if  a  writer  or  painter  be  notoriously  immoral  and  disso- 
lute ?  Suppose  an  actress,  with  exceptional  powers  upon 
the  stage,  but  with  a  reputation  st, lined  all  over  v.ith 
scandal,  whose  sins  against  social  purity  are  patent,  no- 
torious, undisputed — presents  herself  for  our  suffrage 
and  pntronagc— what  sli.dl  wc  do  witli  her?  Shall  wc 
send   our  sons  to  conlcmjilale  her   charms,  and  review 


138  Every- Day   Topics. 

her  base  career  ?  Shall  we  visit  her  with  our  wives 
and  daughters,  and  honor  her  with  our  dollars  and  our 
courtesies  ?  Shall  we  do  what  we  can  to  obliterate  in 
her  mind,  as  well  as  our  own,  all  sense  of  moral  distinc- 
tions ?  We  are  told  we  that  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  woman.  We  have  only  to  do  with  the  actress.  So 
we  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  preacher,  we  suppose- 
only  with  the  sermon.  People  generally  think  they  have 
a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  preacher,  and  that  the  ser- 
mon is  of  very  little  consequence  when  it  is  not  the  sin- 
cere product  of  a  good  character. 

Character  must  stand  behind  and  back  up  everything 
— the  sermon,  the  poem,  the  picture,  the  play.  None 
of  them  is  worth  a  straw  without  it.  Thirty  years  ago 
Jenny  Lind  was  with  us,  and  with  her  marvellous  gift  of 
song,  she  brought  to  us  an  unsullied  character.  It  was  an 
honor  to  touch  her  hand,  and  she  went  about  the  land  as  a 
missionary  of  womanly  purity.  All  men  and  all  women 
honored  her  with  a  higher  admiration  than  her  marvellous 
art  could  inspire.  The  noble  womanhood  which  stood 
behind  her  voice  was  an  uplifting  influence,  wherever  that 
voice  was  heard  ;  and  the  prostituted  womanhood  that 
stands  behind  other  voices  that  wc  know,  taints  every  ear 
that  hears,  and  degrades  every  heart  and  life  that  con- 
sents to  tolerate  it  so  far  as  to  sit  in  its  presence. 

Personal  Economies. 
In  this  country,  we  naturally  go  to  New  England,  and, 
alas  !  to  an  earlier  time,  for  examples  of  personal  econ- 
omy and  thrift.  Almost  any  New  Englander  can  recall 
a  country  minister  who,  on  his  little  yearly  salary  of 
three  or  four  hundred  dollars,  managed,  by  the  help  of 
his  wife,  to  live  respectably  and  comfortably,  educate  a 
luge  family  for  self-support  and  social  usefulness,  and 
lay  up  something  every  year  against  a  rainy  day  which 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     139 

comes  in  all  men's  lives.  We  have  wondered  how  it  was 
done,  but  we  know  it  was  done,  and  that  he  died  at  last 
the  possessor  of  a  nice  little  property.  New  England 
has  been  noted  for  its  hard  soil  and  its  hard  conditions 
generally,  yet  there  is  no  other  spot  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  that  contains  so  much  human  comfort  to  the 
square  mile.  Every  man  born  on  New  England  soil 
tries  and  expects  to  better  his  condition  during  his  life, 
and  he  goes  to  work  at  the  beginning  with  this  end  defi- 
nitely in  view.  The  rich  men  of  New  England  are  men 
who  began  their  prosperity  with  humble  savings.  What- 
ever their  income  was,  they  did  not  use  it  all.  Twenty- 
five  or  fifty  dollars  a  year  was  considered  quite  worth 
saving  and  laying  by.  These  small  sums,  placed  at 
interest,  accumulated  slowly  but  surely,  until  the  day 
came  at  last  when  it  was  capital,  to  be  invested  in  busi- 
ness with  larger  profits.  A  fortune  acquired  in  this  way 
was  cohesive,  strong  and  permanent. 

We  are  quite  aware  that  something  of  grace  and  lov- 
ableness  was  lost  in  the  habit  of  these  small  economies. 
Men  grew  small  quite  too  often,  and  pinched  and  stingy, 
by  the  influence  of  the  habit  of  penny  savings.  This  has 
been  brought  against  New  England  as  a  reproach,  but 
New  England  has  replied,  with  truthfulness  and  pride, 
that  no  people  of  the  country  or  of  the  world  have  been 
more  benevolent  than  her  own  economical  children. 
She  points  to  the  vast  sums  she  has  expended  on  Chris- 
tian missions,  and  to  the  great  public  charities  whose 
monuments  crown  her  hill-tops,  and  shows  that  at  the 
call  of  Christianity  and  humanity  her  purse,  filled  with 
such  painstaking  and  self-denial,  fiies  open  and  empties 
itself  to  fill  the  measure  of  the  public  need.  At  any  rate, 
we  know  that  there  is  not  a  State  in  all  the  W^est  that 
has  not  gone  to  New  ICngland  for  the  money  to  build  her 
towns  and   her   railroads,  and   that  if  she  has  ever  been 


1 40  Every -Day   Topics. 

laggard  in  her  hospitalities,  such  as  she  has  practised 
have  been  at  her  own  expense,  and  not  at  that  of  her 
creditors.  New  England  is  rich — and  this,  after  all,  is 
what  we  are  trying  to  say — notwithstanding  a  hard  soil 
and  an  inhospitable  climate.  Circumstances  were  against 
her  from  the  beginning,  and  economy  was  what  enabled 
her  to  conquer  circumstances,  and  to  lift  herself  to  the 
commanding  position  of  wealth  and  influence  which  she 
holds  to-day.  The  men  who  had  an  income  of  $300  a 
year,  at  the  beginning  lived  on  $200.  The  men  who 
had  an  income  of  $500  lived  on  $300.  Those  whose  in- 
come reached  $1,000  lived  on  half  of  that  sum,  and  so 
on.  They  practised  self-denial.  They  had  no  great 
opportunities  for  making  money,  and  knew  that  wealth 
could  only  come  to  them  through  saving  money.  The 
old  farmer  who,  when  asked  what  the  secret  of  his  wealth 
was,  replied  :  "  When  I  got  a  cent  I  kep'  it,"  told  the 
whole  story  of  New  England  thrift  and  comfort.  Now, 
if  we  look  around  us  here  in  the  city  of  New  York,  we 
shall,  in  the  light  of  this  New  England  example,  learn 
why  it  is  that  so  many  men  and  women  drop  into  pauper- 
ism with  such  fearful  rapidity  on  the  first  stoppage  of 
income.  We  know  very  few  men  of  fixed  incomes  who 
do  not  live  up  to  the  limit  of  these  incomes,  whatever  it 
may  happen  to  be.  A  man  who  this  year  has  a  salary 
of  $2,000  uses  it  all,  and  when  it  goes  up  to  $3,000  or 
$4,000  he  uses  it  all  in  the  same  way.  It  seems  to  make 
no  difference  how  much  he  receives — the  style  and  cost 
of  living  expand  immediately  so  as  to  absorb  all  that 
comes.  Those  who  have  no  fixed  income,  and  are  en- 
gaged in  trade,  adopt  the  style  of  the  prosperous  men 
around  them,  and  strain  every  effort  to  bring  up  their 
income  to  meet  the  requirements  of  that  style.  Every 
family,  instead  of  endeavoring  to  see  how  small  they 
can  make  their  expenses,  endeavor  to  see  how  large  they 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     141 

can  make  them,  or  how  large  their  income  will  permit 
them  to  be.  The  fixed  purpose  to  save  something  out 
of  every  year's  income,  and  so  to  graduate  expenses  that 
something  shall  be  saved — the  policy  of  rigid  self-denial 
for  the  purpose  of  accumulating  property,  even  though 
it  be  slowly,  does  not  apparently  exist  in  this  commu- 
nity. So,  when  the  bread-winner  is  disabled,  or  dies, 
his  family  drops  into  abject  and  utterly  helpless  poverty 
in  a  day,  and  all  life  is  embittered  thenceforward,  sim- 
ply because  no  self-denial  had  been  practised  while  the 
worker  lived,  or  was  able  to  work.  The  man  of  small 
or  modest  income  looks  around  him  and  sees  many  who 
are  rich  and  who  are  not  obliged  to  think  of  every  penny 
they  spend.  He  regards  himself  as  their  social  equal, 
and  wonders  why  it  should  be  necessary  for  him  to  be 
so  pinched  in  his  spendings  and  so  plain  in  his  surround- 
ings. He  does  not  consider  how  much,  and  exactly 
what,  the  wealth  which  moves  his  envy  has  cost.  He 
may  be  sure  that  somewhere,  at  the  foundation  of  all  the 
wealth  he  sees,  there  was  once  a  man  who  practised 
rigid  self-denial,  and  studiously  lived  within  his  income, 
and  saved  money  although  his  income  was  small.  All 
fortunes  have  their  foundations  laid  in  economy.  The 
man  who  holds  the  money  to-day  may  have  inherited  it 
through  the  accident  of  birth,  but  it  cost  his  father  or  his 
grandfather  years — perhaps  a  life-time  — of  economy  and 
self-denial.  There  is  no  royal  road  to  wealth  any  more 
than  there  is  to  learning.  It  costs  hard  work,  and  the 
relinquishment  of  many  pleasures,  and  most  men  may 
have  it  who  will  pay  its  price.  \i  they  are  not  willing 
to  do  this,  why,  they  must  not  complain  of  their  lot  when 
their  day  of  adversity  comes  ;  and  they  ought  to  have 
the  grace  to  make  themselves  just  as  little  of  a  nuisance 
as  possible  to  those  who  have  secured  a  competence  and 
paid  the  honest  price  for  it. 


142  Every -Day   Topics. 

American  Honesty. 

Any  man  who  has  travelled  in  Europe  knows  what  the 
temptation  is  to  buy  and  bring  home  articles  that  can  be 
procured  more  cheaply  there  than  in  America,  under  the 
expectation  that  the  customs  officers  will  let  them  in 
free  of  duty  ;  and  every  observer  knows  that  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  goods  are  imported  annually  in  this 
way  that  pay  no  revenue  to  the  Government.  It  is  no- 
torious, too,  that  many  of  our  citizens  go  to  Canada  to 
buy  clothing,  and  wear  it  home  for  the  purpose  of  cheat- 
ing the  Government.  Men  of  wealth  and  luxuriously 
living  women,  who  would  scorn  to  deal  dishonorably 
with  their  neighbors,  rejoice  in  the  privilege  of  cheating 
their  own  Government,  and  boast  of  their  success  in 
doing  so.  They  do  not  even  suspect  that  they  are  doing 
wrong  in  this  thing.  They  have  no  idea  that  they  are 
acting  meanly  or  dishonestly.  They  look  upon  this 
genteel  kind  of  smuggling  as  a  smart  and  harmless  trick, 
and  display  to  their  friends  the  results  of  their  shrewd- 
ness with  pride  and  self-gratulation.  We  may  find 
among  these  smugglers  thousands  who  look  upon  the 
corruptions  of  politicians  with  indignation,  yet  not  one 
of  them  could  succeed  in  his  smuggling  enterprises  save 
through  the  unfaithfulness  of  public  officers,  whom  they 
reward  for  their  treachery  with  a  gift. 

Would  it  not  be  well  for  us  to  remember,  before  we 
condemn  the  dishonesty  which  is  so  prevalent  in  the 
public  service,  that  the  politicians  and  office-holders  arc, 
on  the  whole,  as  honest  as  the  people  are  ?  All  that 
cither  of  them  seem  to  need  is  a  temptation  to  dishonesty 
to  make  them  dishonest.  The  office-holder  takes  ad- 
vantage of  his  position  to  cheat  his  Government,  and 
c\cry  genteel  smuggler  who  lands  from  a  European 
vessel,  or  crosses  the  Canada  line,  does  the  same  thing 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     143 

from  the  same  motive.  The  radical  trouble,  with  people 
and  politicians  alike,  is  the  entertainment  of  the  idea 
that  stealing  from  the  Government  is  not  stealing  at  all — 
that  a  man  has  a  right  to  get  out  of  his  Government  all 
that  he  can  without  detection.  They  have  not  only- 
brought  their  consciences  into  harmony  with  this  idea, 
but  they  wilfully  break  the  law  of  the  land.  In  short, 
for  the  sake  of  a  trifling  advantage  in  the  purchase  of 
goods,  they  are  willing  to  deceive,  to  tempt  public 
officers  to  forswear  themselves,  to  break  the  laws  of 
their  country,  and  to  deprive  the  Government  that  pro- 
tects them  of  a  portion  of  the  means  by  which  it  sustains 
itself  in  that  service. 

It  is  a  startling  fact  that  there  is  never  a  train  wrecked 
without  pickpockets  on  board,  who  immediately  proceed 
to  plunder  the  helpless  passengers.  These  may  not  be 
professionals.  They  may  never  have  picked  a  pocket  in 
their  lives  before,  but  the  temptation  develops  the  thief. 
There  is  never  a  battle  fought  in  any  place  where  there 
are  not  men  ready  to  plunder  the  slain.  The  devil,  or 
the  wild  beast,  has  been  there  all  the  time,  only  waiting 
for  an  invitation  to  come  out.  Men  look  on  and  see  a 
great  city  badly  managed — see  mayors  and  aldermen 
and  politicians  engaged  in  stealing  and  growing  rich  on 
corruption  ;  but  these  men  find  thousands  ready  on  all 
sides  to  engage  in  corrupt  contracts,  to  render  false 
bills  of  service,  and  to  aid  them  in  all  rascally  ways  to 
fill  their  pockets  with  spoil.  The  men  whom  we  send 
to  our  Legislatures  to  represent  us  seem  quite  willing  to 
become  ihe  tools  of  corrupt  men,  and  it  is  marvellous  to 
see  with  what  joy  the  residents  of  any  locality  receive 
the  patronage  of  the  Government,  whether  needed  or 
not.  That  member  of  Congress  who  secures  to  his  dis- 
trict the  expenditure  of  Gdvcrnmenl  money  for  the  build- 
ing of  any  "  improvement,"  no  matter  how  absurdly  un- 


144  Every -Day   Topics. 

necessary,  does  much  to  secure  his  re-election.  There 
is  no  denying  the  fact  that  the  people  are  just  as  fond  of 
spoil  as  the  politicians  are. 

We  find  fault  with  the  management  of  corporations, 
but  all  our  corporations  have  virtuous  stock-holders. 
Did  anybody  ever  hear  of  these  stock-holders  relinquish- 
ing any  advantage  derived  from  dishonest  management  ? 
Do  they  protest  against  receiving  dividends  of  scrip 
coming  from  watered  stock  ?  Do  they  not  shut  their 
eyes  to  "  irregularities,"  so  long  as  they  are  profitable, 
and  do  not  compromise  their  interests  before  the  law? 
There  is  not  a  corporation  of  any  importance  in  America 
which  is  not  regarded  as  a  fair  subject  for  plunder  by  a 
large  portion  of  the  community.  If  a  piece  of  land  is 
wanted  by  a  corporation,  it  is  placed  at  once  at  the 
highest  price.  Any  price  that  can  be  got  out  of  a  cor- 
poration for  anything  is  considered  a  fair  price.  Cor- 
porations are  the  subjects  of  the  pettiest  and  absurdest 
claims  from  all  sorts  of  men.  Men  hang  upon  some  of 
them  like  leeches,  sucking  their  very  life  blood  out  of 
them. 

And  now,  what  do  all  these  facts  lead  to?  Simply  to 
the  conclusion  that  dishonesty  in  our  Government  and 
dishonesty  in  all  our  corporate  concerns  is  based  on  the 
loose  ideas  of  honesty  entertained  by  our  people.  We 
have  somehow  learned  to  make  a  difference  between 
those  obligations  which  we  owe  to  one  another  as  men, 
and  those  which  we  owe  to  the  Government  and  to  cor- 
porations. These  ideas  are  not  a  whit  more  prevalent 
among  office-holders  and  directors  than  they  are  among 
voters  and  stock-holders.  Men  are  not  materially 
changed  by  being  clothed  with  office  and  power.  The 
radically  honest  man  is  just  as  honest  in  office  as  he  is 
out  of  it.  Corrupt  men  are  the  offspring  of  a  corrupt  so- 
ciety.    We  all  need  straightening  up.     The  lines  of  our 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     145 

morality  all  need  to  be  drawn  tighter.  There  is  not 
a  man  who  is  willing  to  smuggle,  and  to  see  customs 
officers  betray  their  trust  while  he  does  it — willing  to 
receive  the  results  of  the  sharp  practice  of  directors  of 
corporations  in  which  he  has  an  interest ;  willing  to  re- 
ceive the  patronage  of  the  Government  in  the  execution 
of  schemes  not  based  on  absolute  necessity  ;  willing  to 
take  an  exorbitant  price  for  a  piece  of  property  sold  to 
the  Government  or  to  a  corporation — who  is  fit  to  be 
trusted  with  office.  When  we  have  said  this,  we  have 
given  the  explanation  of  all  our  public  and  corporate 
corruption,  and  shown  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  any 
great  trust  managed  honestly.  All  this  official  corrup- 
tion is  based  on  popular  corruption — loose  ideas  of  hon- 
esty as  they  are  held  by  the  popular  mind  ;  and  we  can 
hope  for  no  reform  until  we  are  better  based  as  a 
people  in  the  everlasting  principles  of  equity  and  right- 
doing.  If  we  would  have  the  stream  clear,  we  must 
cleanse  the  fountain. 

Keeping  at  It. 
Every  man  has  his  own  definition  of  happiness  ;  but 
when  men  have  risen  above  the  mere  sensualities  of  life 
— above  eating  and  drinking,  and  sleeping,  and  hearing, 
and  seeing — they  can  come  to  something  like  an  agree- 
ment upon  a  definition  which,  when  formulated,  would 
read  something  like  this  :  "  Happiness  consists  in  the 
harmonious,  healthy,  successful  action  of  a  man's 
powers."  The  higher  these  powers  may  be,  and  the 
higher  the  sphere  in  which  they  move,  the  higher  the 
happiness.  The  genuine  '*  fool's  paradise "  is  case. 
There  are  millions  of  men,  hard  at  work,  who  arc  look- 
ing for  their  reward  to  immunity  from  work.  They 
wt)uid  be  quite  content  to  purchase  twenty- five  years  of 
leisure  with  twenty-five  years  of  the  most  slavish  drudg- 


146  Every- Day   Topics. 

ery.  Toward  these  years  of  leisure  they  constantly 
look  with  hope  and  expectation.  Not  unfrequently  the 
leisure  is  won  and  entered  upon  ;  but  it  is  always  a  dis- 
appointment. It  never  brings  the  happiness  which  was 
expected,  and  it  often  brings  such  a  change  of  habits  as 
to  prove  fatal,  either  to  health  or  to  life. 

A  man  who  inherits  wealth  may  begin  and  worry 
through  three -score  years  and  ten  without  any  very  de- 
finite object.  In  driving,  in  foreign  travel,  in  hunting 
and  fishing,  in  club-houses  and  society,  he  may  manage 
to  pass  away  his  time  ;  but  he  will  hardly  be  happy.  It 
seems  to  be  necessary  to  health  that  the  powers  of  a 
man  be  trained  upon  some  object,  and  steadily  held 
there  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  while  vitality  lasts. 
There  may  come  a  time  in  old  age  when  the  fund  of 
vitality  will  have  sunk  so  low  that  he  can  follow  no  con- 
secutive labor  without  such  a  draft  upon  his  forces  that 
sleep  cannot  restore  them.  Then,  and  not  before,  he 
should  stop  work.  But,  so  long  as  a  man  has  vitality  to 
spare  upon  work,  it  must  be  used,  or  it  will  become  a 
source  of  grievous,  harassing  discontent.  The  man  will 
not  know  what  to  do  with  himself;  and  when  he  has 
reached  such  a  point  as  that,  he  is  unconsciously  digging 
a  grave  for  himself,  and  fashioning  his  own  coffin.  Life 
needs  a  steady  channel  to  run  in — regular  habits  of  work 
and  of  sleep.  It  needs  a  steady,  stimulating  aim — a  trend 
toward  something.  An  aimless  life  can  never  be  happy, 
or,  for  a  long  period,  healthy.  Said  a  rich  widow  to  a 
gentleman,  still  laboring  beyond  his  needs  :  "  Don't 
stop  ;  keep  at  it."  The  words  that  were  in  her  heart 
were  :  "  If  my  husband  had  not  stopped,  he  would  be 
alive  to-day."  And  what  she  thought  was  doubtless 
true.  A  greater  shock  can  hardly  befall  a  man  who  has 
l)cen  active  than  that  which  he  experiences  wlien,  having 
relinquished  his  pursuits,  he  finds  unused  time  and  un- 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     147 

used  vitality  hanging  upon  his  idle  hands  and  mind.  The 
current  of  his  life  is  thus  thrown  into  eddies,  or  settled 
into  a  sluggish  pool,  and  he  begins  to  die. 

We  have,  and  have  had,  in  our  own  city  some  notable 
examples  of  business  continued  through  a  long  life  with 
unbroken  health  and  capacities  to  the  last.  Mr.  Astor, 
who  has  just  passed  away,  undoubtedly  prolonged  his 
life  by  his  steady  adherence  to  business.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  he  lived  longer  and  was  happier  for  his  con- 
tinued work.  If  he  had  settled  back  upon  the  conscious- 
ness of  assured  wealth,  and  taken  the  ease  that  was  so 
thoroughly  warranted  by  his  large  possessions,  he  would 
undoubtedly  have  died  years  ago.  Commodore  Van- 
dcrbilt,  also  among  the  recently  deceased,  was  a  nota- 
ble instance  of  healthy  powers,  continued  by  use.  Many 
people  wonder  why  such  men  continue  to  work  when 
they  might  retire  upon  their  money  and  their  laurels  ; 
l)ut  they  are  working,  not  only  for  happiness,  but  for 
life. 

The  great  difficulty  with  us  all  is  that  we  do  not  play 
enough.  The  play  toward  which  men  in  business  look 
for  their  reward  should  never  be  taken  in  a  lump,  but 
should  be  scattered  all  along  their  career.  It  should  be 
enjoyed  every  day,  every  week.  The  man  who  looks 
forward  to  it  wants  it  now.  Play,  like  wit  in  literature, 
should  never  be  a  grand  dish,  but  a  spice  ;  and  a  man 
who  does  not  take  his  play  with  his  work  never  has  it. 
Play  ceases  to  be  play  to  a  man  when  it  ceases  to  be  re- 
laxation from  daily  work.  As  the  grand  business  of 
life,  play  is  the  hardest  work  a  man  can  do. 

Besides  the  motives  of  continued  life  and  happiness  lo 
which  we  have  called  attention  in  this  article,  there  is 
another  of  peculiar  force  in  America,  which  binds  us  to 
labor  while  we  live.  If  we  look  across  the  water,  we 
shall   tind  that   nearlv  all  the  notable  men  die  in  har- 


148  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

ness.  The  old  men  are  the  great  men  in  Parliament 
and  Cabinet.  Yet  it  is  true  that  a  man  does  not  so 
wholly  take  himself  out  of  life  in  Europe  as  in  America 
when  he  relinquishes  business.  A  rich  man  in  Europe  can 
quit  active  affairs,  and  still  have  the  consideration  due  to 
his  talents,  his  wealth,  and  his  social  position.  Here, 
a  man  has  only  to  "  count  himself  out"  of  active  pur- 
suits, to  count  himself  out  of  the  world.  A  man  out  of 
M'ork  is  a  dead  man,  even  if  he  is  the  possessor  of  mil- 
lions. The  world  walks  straight  over  him  and  his  mem- 
ory. One  reason  why  a  rich  and  idle  man  is  happier  in 
Europe  than  at  home  is  that  he  has  the  countenance  of  a 
class  of  respectable  men  and  women  living  upon  their 
vested  incomes.  A  man  may  be  respectable  in  Europe 
without  work.  After  a  certain  fashion,  he  can  be  so 
here  ;  but,  after  all,  the  fact  that  he  has  ceased  to  be 
active  in  affairs  of  business  and  politics  makes  him  of 
no  account.  He  loses  his  influence,  and  goes  for  noth- 
ing, except  a  relic  with  a  hat  on,  to  be  bowed  to.  So 
there  is  no  way  for  us  but  to  "  keep  at  it  ;  "  get  all  the 
play  we  need  as  we  go  on  ;  drive  at  something,  so  long 
as  the  hand  is  strong  and  steady,  and  not  to  think  of  rest 
this  side  of  the  narrow  bed,  where  the  sleep  will  be  too 
deep  for  dreams,  and  the  waking  will  open  into  infinite 
leisure. 

Suspected  Duties. 
There  is  a  large  number  of  conscientious  men  and  wom- 
en in  all  society  who  suspect,  with  a  considerable  degree 
of  pain,  that  they  are  not  performing  the  duties  which 
are  incumbent  upon  them.  They  see  duties  to  be  done 
that  somebody  ought  to  do.  They  do  not  understand  the 
reason  why  these  duties  do  not  belong  to  them,  and  yet 
they  do  not  discover  any  motives,  or  any  fitness  in  them- 
selves to  engage  in  them  ;  and  they  blame  themselves, 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     149 

in  a  weak  way,  for  the  fact.  They  see  the  duties  dis- 
tinctly ;  they  apprehend  the  necessities  of  society  ;  and 
finding  themselves  competent  to  judge,  and  capable  of  a 
great  many  things,  it  seems  to  them  that  these  duties  are 
theirs.  Rather,  perhaps,  they  do  not  discover  any  rea- 
sons why  they  are  not  theirs.  The  consequence  is  a 
vague  feeling  of  unrest  and  dissatisfaction  with  them- 
selves. Somebody  ought  to  lead  in  some  political,  or 
social,  or  religious  movement.  Should  they  do  it,  or 
should  they  leave  it  to  somebody  else  ?  Perhaps  they 
are  called  upon  to  lead,  and  they  shrink  from  the  work 
with  a  dread  of  which  they  are  ashamed,  but  which  they 
feel  quite  incompetent  to  overcome.  They  are  called 
upon  to  speak  publicly,  to  pray  publicly,  to  put  them- 
selves forward  as  leaders,  to  assume  responsibility,  yet 
their  whole  nature  rebels,  and  they  are  not  only  dis- 
gusted with  themselves  but  they  become  most  unhappy 
self-accusers.  There  are  multitudes  of  men  and  women 
upon  whom  the  burdens  of  suspected  duties  are  heavier 
than  the  real  ones,  which  they  are  only  too  glad  to  bear 
at  any  cost. 

Now  we  believe  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  wrong 
teaching  upon  this  matter,  especially  in  the  churches. 
Modest,  retiring  men,  and  more  modest  and  retiring 
women,  have  been  forced  to  their  feet  or  their  knees, 
and  to  public  utterance,  by  the  unjust  assurance  that 
it  was  their  duty  to  testify  publicly  to  the  faith  that  was 
in  them.  Church-going  people  have  all  heard  men  pray 
and  speak  who  had  no  gift  of  utterance,  who  could 
neither  help  themselves  nor  edify  others,  in  the  per- 
formance of  what  they  suspected,  and  what  they  were 
assured  was  their  duty.  Their  work  was  an  unspeakable 
pain  to  themselves,  and  a  distress  to  others.  The  stere- 
otyped phrases  of  prayer,  and  the  common-places  of 
exhortation,  uttered  with  embarrassment,  and   listened 


1 50  Every-  Day   Topics. 

to  with  sympathetic  pain,  have  made  the  conference 
meeting,  in  numberless  instances,  a  dismal  gathering — 
unattractive,  in  every  respect,  and  unrefreshing.  The 
man  who  suspects  his  duty,  goes  there  with  dread,  and 
sits  through  all  with  distressing  apprehension. 

Politics  go  wrong.  The  politics  of  a  neighborhood  or  a 
district  are  in  bad  hands.  A  true  man,  seeing  this,  begins 
at  once  to  question  his  own  duty  in  the  premises.  He 
feels  that  something  ought  to  be  done  by  somebody,  but 
he  feels  no  impulse  or  ability  to  lead  in  the  work  of  re- 
form, and  blames  himself  for  what  he  unmistakably 
regards  as  his  own  cowardice.  A  social  evil  arises, 
which  somebody  ought  to  suppress,  and  the  good  citizen 
feels  himself  incompetent  or  unmoved  to  grapple  with  it, 
and  condemns  himself  for  his  own  apathy.  He  suspects 
himself  of  shirking  a  duty,  and  is  unhappy  over  it.  He 
cannot  rise  in  a  public  gathering  and  denounce  wrong. 
He  cannot  meet  and  dispute  with  vicious  or  wrong- 
headed  men.  He  dreads  a  personal  collision  of  convic- 
tion and  will  as  he  would  a  street-fight. 

Now,  all  these  vmhappy  people,  who  live  constantly  in 
the  presence  of  suspected  duties,  deserve  the  profound- 
est  sympathy,  no  less  than  the  wisest  instruction.  They 
are  usually  people  who,  by  the  purity  of  their  personal 
character,  and  their  sensitive  conscientiousness,  have  a 
right  to  a  comfortable  mind,  and  a  peaceful  life.  Duty 
goes  hand-in-hand  with  ability.  Men  are  to  give  in 
charity  each  "  according  to  his  ability,"  in  money  not 
only,  but  in  all  benevolent  effort.  The  man  who  has  one 
talent  is  not  required  to  return  the  interest  on  ten.  The 
eye  is  not  the  hand,  and  can  never  do  the  service  of  the 
hand.  The  hand  is  not  the  eye,  or  the  ear,  or  the  foot, 
and  can  only  work  in  its  own  way.  The  eye  may  see  a 
stone  to  be  lifted,  or  kicked  out  of  the  road,  but  it  needs 
to  take  no  blame   to   itself  because  it  feels  no  ability  to 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     151 

remove  the  obstacle.  Men  are  not  like  each  other  ;  they 
are  most  unlike.  One  delights  in  public  speech,  and 
is  moved  by  all  the  powers  of  his  nature  to  engage  in  it. 
One  is  at  home  only  with  his  pen,  but  he  goes  into  the 
battles  of  society  bravely  with  that.  One  is  a  peace- 
maker, and  finds  his  most  grateful  office  in  reconciling 
differences  in  families  and  social  organizations.  One  is 
limited  in  power  to  his  own  family,  or  those  bound  to 
him  by  the  ties  of  nature  ;  yet,  in  thousands  of  instances, 
these  men  are  living  with  the  painful  suspicion  that  they 
are  neglecting  duties  that  actually  lie  far  outside  of  the 
sphere  of  their  abilities. 

We  suppose  that  when  Mr.  Moody  was  preaching  in 
the  Hippodrome  there  were  hundreds  who  suspected 
that  they  ought  to  imitate  his  life  and  labor.  Perhaps 
some  of  them  ought  to  do  so  ;  and  the  chances  are  that 
such  of  them  as  ought  to  do  so  will  do  so.  They  will  be 
moved  to  it  irresistibly,  because  the  powers  in  them, 
corresponding  to  his,  will  clamor  for  their  natural  ex- 
pression. But  a  man  who  is  not  moved  to  do  this,  is 
not  convicted  of  being  a  poorer  Christian  than  Mr. 
Moody  by  that  fact.  Mr.  Moody  has  a  gift  for  preach- 
ing— a  gift  for  approaching  men  personally,  and  direct- 
ing them  wisely— a  gift  that  has  been  greatly  improved 
by  use,  of  course,  but  still  a  gift,  without  which  he  could 
never  have  begun  his  mission.  Most  men  have  no  gift 
for  public  speech,  and  therefore  public  speech  is  no  part 
of  their  duty.  They  need  not  suspect  themselves  on 
this  account,  or  blame  themselves,  or  in  any  way  make 
themselves  unhappy  over  it. 

There  are  a  great  many  kinds  of  work  to  be  done  in 
the  world,  and  just  as  many  varieties  of  men  who  are 
made  to  do  it.  No  one  man  can  do  the  work  of  another. 
The  business  of  each  is  to  find  exactly,  or  as  nearly  as 
he  can,  the  work  he  is  best  fitted  to  do,  and  to  doit  with 


15-  Every- Day   Topics. 

all  his  might.  This  entire,  overshadowing  burden  of  sus- 
pected duties  ought  to  be  lifted,  and  the  great  world  of 
dissatisfaction  and  self-condemnation  that  lies  under  it 
opened  to  the  sunlight  of  peace.  Our  social  and  our 
religious  teachers,  especially  the  latter,  have  a  duty  in 
this  matter  toward  their  disciples  which  they  need  not 
suspect  for  a  moment.  They  have  no  right  to  set  a  man 
to  doing  that  which  he  can  never  do  with  profit  to  him- 
self or  others,  or  instil  the  feeling  among  those  who 
listen  to  their  instructions  that  their  duty  lies  in  lines 
outside  of  their  conscious  or  proved  abilities.  The  man 
who  does  his  duty  where  he  stands,  with  such  implements 
as  God  has  given  him,  has  a  right  to  the  enjoyment  of 
peace  and  satisfaction ;  and  to  make  him  suspect  that 
he  ought  to  do  something  more  and  something  else,  is  to 
do  him  a  life -long  injury  and  a  great  wrong.  It  is  to 
make  a  pitiful  slave  of  one  who  has  the  right  to  be  free. 

The  Prudential  Element. 
We   have    received    a  very  candid  and,  in  some  re- 
spects,  a  very  impressive    letter,    criticising    Professor 
Sumner's   recent   article   on   "  Socialism,"  published  in 
this  Magazine.     We  make  space  for  a  paragraph. 

''  He  (Professor  Sumner)  is  evidently  more  a  student  of  politi- 
cal economy  than  of  moral  economy  ;  for  he  seems  to  believe  in 
those  economic  laws  which  offer  their  rewards  to  the  sharp,  rather 
than  the  moral  man.  The  present  economic  laws  are  based  upon 
free  competition.  Here  the  intellectual,  subtile  man  has  greatly 
the  advantage.  Right  is  determined  by  might  in  this  as  much  as 
in  the  savage  state,  only  here  it  is  intellectual  rather  than  physical 
might  which  controls." 

The  writer  goes  on  to  say  that  this  kind  of  civilization 
is  "  only  a  step  out  of  the  merely  natural  brutal  in- 
stincts," that  men  are  mostly  made  and  their  lives  di- 
rected by  circumstances,  and  then  he  gives  the  familiar 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     153 

proposition  that  "  one-tenth  of  the  population  of  England 
die  paupers  in  order  that  another  tenth  may  live  in  lux- 
ury and  die  millionaires." 

No  account  is  taken  in  what  we  have  quoted,  and  no 
account  is  taken  in  the  letter,  of  the  prudential  element 
in  human  life  and  human  society.  This  is  the  more  re- 
markable because  our  correspondent  assumes  the  role 
of  morality  with  which  that  element  is  indissolubly  asso- 
ciated. It  is  not  true  that  the  great  victories  of  life  are 
to  the  sharp  and  immoral  man,  as  a  rule.  Here  and 
there,  by  sharpness  and  cunning,  men  rise  into  wealth, 
but  that  wealth  is  not  of  a  kind  that  is  apt  to  remain.  // 
takes  a  certain  amount  of  virtue,  of  self-denial,  of  moral- 
ity, to  lay  up  and  keep  money.  In  the  lives  of  nearly  all 
rich  men  there  have  been  periods  of  heroic  self-denial, 
of  patient  industry,  of  Christian  prudence.  Circum- 
stances did  not  make  these  men  rich.  The  highest 
moral  prudence  made  them  rich.  While  their  compan- 
ions were  dancing  away  their  youth,  or  drinking  away 
their  middle  age,  these  men  were  devoted  to  small  econ- 
omies— putting  self-indulgence  entirely  aside. 

If  our  correspondent  or  our  readers  will  recall  their 
companions,  we  think  the  first  fact  they  will  be  im- 
pressed with  is  the  measure  of  equality  with  which  they 
started  in  the  race  for  competence  or  wealth.  The  next 
fact  they  will  be  impressed  with  is  the  irregularity  of  the 
end.  Then,  if  they  make  an  inquisition  into  the  causes 
of  the  widely  varying  results,  they  will  be  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  insignificant  part  "circumstances" 
have  played  in  those  results.  Circumstances  ?  Why 
the  rich  man's  son  v.ho  had  all  the  "  circumstances"  of 
the  town  has  become  a  beggar.  The  poor,  quiet  lad, 
tlie  only  son  of  his  mother — and  she  a  widow,  who  could 
only  earn  money  enough  to  procure  for  her  boy  the 
commonest  education — is  a  man  of  wealth  and  has  be- 


1 54  Every-Day   Topics. 

come  a  patron  of  his  native  village.  The  man  who  pos- 
sesses and  practises  virtue,  makes  his  own  circum- 
stances. The  self-denying,  prudent  man  creates  around 
himself  an  atmosphere  of  safety  where  wealth  naturally 
takes  refuge,  provided,  of  course,  that  the  man  has  the 
power  to  earn  it,  either  in  production,  or  exchange,  or 
any  kind  of  manual  or  intellectual  service. 

We  are  sorry  that  our  correspondent,  who  seems  intel- 
ligent in  some  things,  should  betray  the  ignorance  or  lack 
of  reflection  that  appears  in  his  proposition  relating  to 
the  English  paupers  and  millionnaires.  Nothing  could  be 
more  grossly  and  abominably  untrue  than  the  statement 
that  "  one-tenth  of  the  population  of  England  die  pau- 
pers i)i  order  that  another  tenth  may  live  in  luxury  and 
die  millionaires."  There  is  not  between  the  poverty  of 
one  class  and  the  wealth  of  the  other  the  slightest  rela- 
tion of  effect  to  cause.  If  the  poor  people  of  England  had 
taken  for  the  last  few  centuries  the  gold  that  wealth  has 
paid  to  them  for  work  in  honest  wages,  and  used  it  only 
in  legitimate  expenses,  if  they  had  not  debauched  them- 
selves with  drink,  spending  not  only  their  money  but  their 
life  and  their  power  to  work  upon  a  consuming  appetite, 
the  pauper  class  would  be  too  insignificant  to  talk  about. 
It  is  not  "  circumstances"  that  reduces  the  British  work- 
man to  pauperism ;  it  is  beer,  or  gin.  The  waste  that 
goes  on  in  England,  through  the  consumption  of  alco- 
holic drinks,  is  the  cause  of  its  pauperism. 

The  cd.sc,  prima  facit',  is  always  against  a  pauper. 
The  accidents  of  life  sometimes  cast  a  man  or  a  woman 
high  and  dry  upon  the  sands  of  a  helpless  poverty  ;  but 
usually  pauperism  comes  through  a  lack  of  the  pruden- 
tial virtues.  It  is  not  always  that  a  pauper  wastes  his 
revenues  in  drink,  or  other  immoralities  ;  but  somewhere 
in  his  career,  forty-nine  times  in  fifty,  it  will  be  found 
that  he  has  been  extravagant ;   that  he  has  not  exercised 


Certain  Virtues  and  Virtuous  Habits.     155 

self-denial  under  temptation  ;  that  he  has  lived  up  to  or 
beyond  his  means,  or  has  ventured  upon  risks  that  the 
lowest  grade  of  business  prudence  would  condemn. 
Now,  who  is  to  bear  the  penalty  of  these  sins  and  mis- 
takes ?  How  are  they  to  be  prevented  in  future,  if  those 
who  commit  them,  regardless  of  consequences,  are  to 
be  coddled  and  taken  care  of  by  those  who  have  denied 
themselves  and  laid  up  a  little  wealth  ? 

Good,  rugged,  grand  old  Thomas  Carlyle  !  It  is  re- 
freshing to  read  amid  the  mawkish  sentimentality  of  this 
latter  day  such  a  healthy  utterance  as  this  from  his 
sturdy  pen:  "  Let  wastefulness,  idleness,  improvidence 
take  the  fate  which  God  has  appointed  them,  that  their 
opposites  may  also  have  a  chance  for  their  fate."  As  it 
is,  our  philanthropists  try  to  make  us  believe  that  the 
special  business  of  a  thrifty  man  is  not  in  any  way  to 
enjoy  the  fruit  of  his  prudence  and  enterprise,  but  to 
shield  the  shiftless  people  around  him  from  the  results 
of  their  own  imprudence  and  improvidence. 


EDUCATION   AND   INDUSTRY. 

The  Ornamental  Branches. 

MR.  HERBERT  SPENCER'S  views  of  education,  as 
contained  in  his  book  on  that  subject,  now  for  some 
years  before  the  pubhc,  ought  by  this  time  to  have  made 
some  impression,  and  worked  out  some  practical  result. 
We  fear,  however,  that  it  has  accomplished  little  beyond 
giving  to  a  wise  man  or  woman,  here  or  there,  a  shock- 
ing glimpse  into  the  hollowness  of  our  time-honored 
educational  systems.  It  is  equally  amusing  and  humiliat- 
ing to  those  of  us  who  live  in  this  boasted  civilization 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  sec  this  philosopher  pick 
our  systems  in  pieces,  and  show  how  they  are  founded 
on  the  instincts  of  savagery.  Decoration  of  the  body 
precedes  dress,  and  dress  is  developed  out  of  the  desire 
to  be  admired.  In  all  savage  life  the  idea  of  ornament 
predominates  over  that  of  use,  and  Mr.  Spencer  says 
that  we  who  are  civilized  think  more  of  the  fineness  of  a 
fabric  than  its  warmth,  and  more  about  the  cut  than  the 
convenience. 

He  then  goes  on  to  say  that  like  relations  hold  with 
the  mind.  Here  also  the  ornamental  comes  before  the 
useful.  That  knowledge  which  conduces  to  personal 
well-being  has  been  postponed  to  that  which  brings  ap- 
plause, especially  in  the  case  of  women.  So  far  as  wom- 
en are  concerned,  all  this  goes  without  saying,  but  Mr. 
Spencer  goes  farther  than  this,  and  asserts  that  in   the 


Education  and  Industry.  157 

education  of  men  the  rule  holds  in  only  a  less  remark- 
able degree.  Here  we  can  do  no  better  than  to  quote 
his  own  words,  which  are  enough  to  make  the  blood  of  a 
college  president  run  cold  : 

"  We  are  guilty  of  something  like  a  platitude  when  we  say  that 
throughout  his  after  career,  a  boy,  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  applies 
his  Latin  and  Greek  to  no  practical  purpose.  The  remark  is  trite 
that  in  his  shop  or  his  office,  or  managing  his  estate  or  his  family, 
or  playing  his  part  as  director  of  a  bank  or  a  railway,  he  is  very 
little  aided  by  this  knowledge  he  took  so  many  years  to  acquire — 
so  little  that,  generally,  the  greater  part  of  it  drops  out  of  his  mem- 
ory ;  and  if  he  occasionally  vents  a  Latin  quotation,  or  alludes 
to  some  Greek  myth,  it  is  less  to  throw  light  upon  the  topic  in 
hand  than  for  the  sake  of  effect.  If  we  inquire  what  is  the  real 
motive  for  giving  boys  a  classical  education,  we  find  it  to  be  simply 
conformity  to  public  opinion.  Men  dress  theirchildren's  minds  as 
they  do  their  bodies,  in  the  prevailing  fashion.  As  the  Orinoco 
Indian  puts  on  his  paint  before  leaving  his  hut,  not  with  a  view  to 
any  direct  benefit,  but  because  he  would  be  ashamed  to  be  seen 
without  it,  so  a  boy's  drilling  in  Latin  and  Greek  is  insisted  on, 
not  because  of  their  intrinsic  value,  but  that  he  may  not  be  dis- 
graced by  being  found  ignorant  of  them — that  he  may  have  '  the 
education  of  a  gentleman  ' — the  badge  marking  a  certain  social 
position,  and  bringing  a  consequent  respect." 

Now,  if  a  smaller  man  than  Mr.  Spencer  had  said 
this,  his  words  might  be  passed  by  as  of  no  moment 
whatever,  but  they  are  spoken  deliberately  by  one  of  the 
masters  of  the  age.  Wc  arc  told  distinctly  that  the  study 
of  Latin  and  Greek  is  almost  purely  for  ornamental 
purposes,  that  these  languages  are  of  no  practical  use  in 
any  of  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  and  that  when  they  are 
used  it  is  chiefly  for  show.  He  has  not  a  word  to  say  of 
their  disciplinary  effect  upon  the  mind,  of  their  usefulness 
in  exhibiting  the  sources  of  modern  language,  of  their 
l)cing  the  repositories  and  vehicles  of  ancient  valuable 
literatures.   No  ;   it  is  all  for  ornament.    Latin  and  Cireck 


158  Every -Day   Topics. 

are  ornamental  branches,  and  to  these  the  best  years  of 
the  hfe  of  our  youth  are  given.  If  the  stock  arguments 
in  favor  of  these  studies  were  offered,  it  would  be  quite 
in  order  for  him,  or  any  one,  to  answer  that  the  discipli- 
nary effect  of  the  study  of  German  and  French — not  to 
speak  of  the  English  which  it  is  the  fashion  to  neglect 
altogether — can  hardly  be  less  than  that  of  Greek  and 
Latin ;  and  that  the  ancient  literatures  exist  in  transla- 
tions easily  read  by  all  who  find  either  knowledge  or 
nutriment  in  them.  Is  it  true — this  which  Mr.  Spencer 
so  deliberately  asserts  ?  Is  it  true  that  the  precious 
years  of  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  are  thus  thrown 
away  ? — for  that  is  the  amount  of  his  assertion.  Is  it 
true  that  fathers  and  guardians  are  spending  their  money 
for  naught  ? — that  widowed  mothers  are  pinching  them- 
selves that  their  sons  may  acquire  useless  knowledge  ? — 
that  homes  are  left  by  thousands  of  young  men  when 
homes  would  be  of  incalculable  use  to  them  for  nothing 
but  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  without  value  ?  Is  all 
this  half  true  ? 

We  very  strongly  suspect  that  Mr.  Spencer  is  right, 
or  at  least  half  right,  and  that  the  whole  civilized  world, 
among  the  highest  forces  of  its  civilization,  is  squander- 
ing the  best  years  of  its  young  men — sacrificing  them  to 
a  fashion.  It  ought  not  to  be  difficult  at  this  day  to  es- 
tablish a  curriculum  of  liberal  study  which  should  em- 
brace mainly  useful  knowledge.  The  realm  of  science 
has  been  so  greatly  enlarged,  and  the  relations  of  science 
to  life  have  been  so  widely  discovered  and  recorded ; 
the  importance  of  a  familiar  knowledge  of  German  and 
French  is  so  great  now,  that  original  scientific  researches 
are  largely  published  in  those  languages,  and  the  inter- 
course of  the  most  advanced  nations  is  so  constantly  in- 
creasing, that  it  would  seem  as  if  Latin  and  Greek  must, 
perforce,  be  pushed  out  by  the  common  sense  of  the 


Education  and  Industry.  159 

people  and  the  conscious  lack  of  time  for  the  study  of 
them. 

We  have  in  these  days  a  great  deal  of  crowding  of 
young  men.  To  fit  for  college  now  is  to  do  almost  what 
many  of  our  fathers  did  to  get  through  college.  The 
greatest  care  of  health  has  to  be  taken  to  keep  from 
Ijreaking  the  boys  down.  They  practise  physical  exer- 
cise, and  we  study  dietetics  for  them,  and  manage,  in 
all  the  wise  ways  we  know,  to  keep  the  poor  fellows  up 
to  their  work,  and  yet,  with  every  sort  of  "ponying" 
and  cramming,  it  is  all  they  can  do  to  get  through.  And 
when  they  get  through,  what  have  they  on  hand  or  mind 
that  compensates  them  for  their  tremendous  expendi- 
ture ?  As  Mr.  Spencer  elsewhere  says,  in  this  same 
book,  most  things  that  a  boy  learns  which  are  of  any 
real  use  to  him  he  learns  after  leaving  college.  The 
truth  is,  that  all  this  crowding  to  which  the  boys  are 
now  subjected  results  from  the  attempt  to  add  to  the  old 
curriculum  from  the  ever-growing  repertory  of  "  knowl- 
edge." When,  some  years  ago,  the  talk  of  "  relieving 
Broadway"  was  the  fashion,  the  stage-drivers  struck  for 
higher  wages,  and  every  line  of  omnibuses  was  stopped. 
It  was  at  once  discovered  that  getting  rid  of  the  omni- 
buses "relieved"  Broadway,  and  that  without  them  it 
would  be  a  very  pleasant  street.  Indeed,  if  the  relief 
had  been  long  enough  continued,  it  is  quite  probable 
there  would  have  been  a  movement  made  to  prevent 
their  return.  Greek  and  Latin  have  only  to  be  removed 
from  the  principal  street  through  which  our  educational 
processes  pass  to  relieve  it,  and  make  it  one  in  which 
our  children  can  walk  with  freedom  and  delight. 

This  may  be  deemed  somewhat  sweeping  doctrine, 
but  we  are  in  good  company,  and  are  quite  content  with 
our  backing.  That  something  should  be  known  of 
Latin  and  Greek  — enout^h  to  aid  us  in  understanding  the 


i6o  Every -Day   Topics. 

form  and  meaning  of  scientific  nomenclature — is  evident 
enough ;  but  that  every  liberally  educated  man  should 
be  made  to  know  enough  of  those  languages  to  teach 
them  is  absurd  and  cruel.  We  rejoice  in  the  scientific 
schools,  and  the  scientific  "  courses  of  study"  connected 
with  academic  institutions.  They  mark  the  beginning 
of  a  better  system  of  things,  and,  in  the  long  run,  they 
will  confer  such  superior  advantages  upon  young  men  in 
preparing  for  the  practical  work  of  life  that  they  will 
absorb  most  of  the  students,  or  compel  classical  studies 
to  take  a  lower  and  subordinate  place  in  the  average  col- 
lege curriculum.  But  it  is  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  reflect 
upon  that,  with  boys  as  with  girls,  time  and  effort  are 
mainly  spent  upon  "  the  ornamental  branches"  of  edu- 
cation. We  are  accustomed  to  having  girls  spend  years 
upon  the  acquirement  of  arts  of  music  and  drawing  that 
are  never  practised,  and  upon  French  that  is  never 
spoken,  and  that  could  not  be  understood  if  it  were  ;  but 
when  we  are  told  by  the  highest  authorities  that  the 
Latin  and  Greek  whicli  our  boys  spend  all  their  youth 
upon  are  of  no  use,  it  is  rather  discouraging,  and  we 
begin  to  wish  that  our  universities  would  take  counsel 
of  common  sense  rather  than  of  fashion  and  precedent, 
so  that  we  may  spend  money  and  life  no  more  for  that 
which  is  not  bread. 

Fitting  for  College. 
The  difficulty  that  some  young  men  have  in  the 
endeavor  to  enter  the  colleges  of  their  choice,  makes 
desirable  a  public  discussion  of  the  matter,  that  both 
parents  and  young  men  may  have  a  more  intelligent 
comprehension  of  just  what  they  have  to  do.  A  boy, 
we  will  say,  attends  a  private  school  in  New  York.  The 
school  is  near  the  boy's  home,  the  teacher  is  all  that  is 
desirable    in  character   and  acquirements ;    one  of  his 


Education  and  Industry.  iGi 

special  functions  is  to  fit  young  men  for  college,  and  so 
the  boy  is  kept  there,  much  to  the  comfort  of  his  pa- 
rents, who  like,  as  long  as  possible,  to  keep  their  chil- 
dren near  them. 

Now,  it  should  be  understood  that  a  boy,  attempting  to 
fit  for  college  in  this  way,  works  at  an  immense  disad- 
vantage. In  the  first  place,  where  so  many  boys  are 
brought  together  in  a  miscellaneous  way,  they  will  be 
found  to  have  varying  predilections  for  the  different 
colleges.  One  wishes  to  fit  for  Harvard,  one  for  Yale, 
one  for  Columbia,  one  for  Princeton,  one  for  Amherst, 
and  so  on.  Now,  these  colleges  have  widely  differing 
standards  in  a  general  way,  and  widely  differing  re- 
quirements in  particulars.  There  is  necessity  for  classi- 
fication in  the  economy  of  labor ;  and  so  these  boys,  who 
are  fitting  for  various  colleges,  are  put  together.  Now, 
while  one  of  them  may  be  fitted  for  one  college,  he  may 
not  be  at  all  fitted  for  another,  or  not  fitted  in  some 
essential  particulars.  One  of  them  enters  the  college  of 
his  choice  without  difficulty,  and  all  the  rest,  perhaps, 
arc  conditioned,  or  fail  entirely,  and  they,  with  their 
parents,  arc  subjected  to  a  great  disappointment  and  a 
great  mortification  from  which  they  never  entirely  re- 
cover. 

Again,  an  ordinary  private  school  in  the  city  is  attended 
by  a  large  number  who  do  not  intend  to  fit  for  college  at 
nil.  They  are  the  sons,  perhaps,  of  business  men,  who 
intend  to  make  business  men  of  them.  Probably  the 
majority  of  the  boys  in  the  larger  and  smaller  private 
academies  of  the  city  have  no  view  to  a  college  training, 
though  some  of  them  may  be  getting  ready  to  go  away  to 
some  special  preparatory  school.  At  any  rate,  the 
schools  have  no  drift  in  the  direction  of  the  college. 
There  is  no  unity  of  aim,  no  class  si)irit,  no  emulation 
amonir  a  large  body  of  bovs  who  are  running  along  a 


1 62  Every- Day   Topics. 

common  track  toward  a  common  goal.  The  schools  are 
lakes  of  educational  and  social  eddies.  They  are  not 
streams  that  drive  on  toward  a  single  debouchure  into 
the  sea.  Now,  no  man  who  understands  the  nature  of  a 
boy  can  fail  to  see  that  in  institutions  like  these,  he 
works  at  a  very  great  disadvantage.  Class  life  has  a 
wonderful  influence  on  a  boy.  It  is  in  this  life  that  he 
not  only  learns  to  measure  himself,  but  he  is  immensely 
stimulated  by  sympathy  and  society.  The  school  that 
has  a  common  drift  and  aim,  common  plans,  common 
topics  of  conversation,  common  text-books,  and  knows 
exactly  what  it  is  trying  to  do,  and  what  it  must  do,  is 
that  in  which  any  boy  will  do  best. 

The  disappointments  which  come  in  such  numbers  to 
parents  and  boys  every  year,  grow  mainly  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  boys  have  not  had  a  fair  chance.  They  have 
been  kept  in  schools  where  they  have  always  studied  at 
a  disadvantage.  It  may  not  be  that  they  have  lacked  at 
all  in  faithful  study,  but  it  has  all  been  up-hill,  with  in- 
fluences around  them  that  have  never  helped,  but  always 
hindered  them. 

We  have  now,  scattered  about  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  eminent  preparatory  schools,  officered  and  ap- 
pointed for  their  special  work.  They  have  some,  per- 
haps many,  students  in  them  who  are  not  fitting  for  the 
college,  but  the  controlling  influences  all  tend  toward 
the  college.  Nearly  every  one  of  these  institutions  has 
a  special  affiliation  with  a  college,  and  it  is  understood 
that  the  most  of  those  who  attend  any  particular  one  of 
them  will  go  to  a  certain  college.  There  are  schools 
that  fit  for  Harvard.  There  are  those  that  fit  for  Yale, 
or  Princeton,  or  Cornell,  or  Columbia.  There  was  prob- 
ably never  a  time  when  these  schools  were  as  good  as 
they  are  to-day.  Some  of  them  have  the  reputation 
even  of   fitting   too  well,  so  that  a  student  who  enters 


Education  and  Industry.  163 

college  from  them  finds  himself  with  so  little  to  do 
during  the  first  year  that  he  loses  his  industry,  and  is 
surpassed  in  the  long  run  by  those  who  simply  get  in, 
and  are  obliged  to  work  hard  during  the  first  year  to 
keep  in. 

Any  school  of  miscellaneous  and  multitudinous  aims 
is  a  bad  school  for  special  work,  no  matter  what  the 
work  may  be.  Any  school  whose  social  influences  can- 
not be  harnessed  in  with  the  educational  and  guided 
toward  a  common  object,  and  that  object  the  college, 
cannot  be  the  best  in  which  to  fit  a  boy  for  college.  So 
let  the  boys  have  a  fair  chance.  If  they  cannot  find  the 
preparatory  school  they  need  in  the  city,  they  must  go 
to  the  country — go  somewhere,  at  least,  to  a  school 
whose  function  it  is  to  do  the  special  work  desired.  If 
this  rule  were  strictly  followed,  the  great  army  of  the 
mismanaged  and  the  plucked,  every  year  turned  away 
from  our  universities,  would  be  very  much  reduced. 

College  Instruction. 
One  would  suppose  that,  after  the  discussions  of  edu- 
cational processes  with  which  the  platform  and  the  press 
have  teemed  during  the  last  two  decades,  professional 
educators  would  be  thoroughly  furnished  with  sound 
ideas  and  excellent  methods.  At  least,  the  college, 
which  assumes  the  highest  place  among  educational  in- 
stitutions, should  present  a  system  of  instruction  above 
reproach  ;  yet  it  seems  to  us  that  the  college  is  particu- 
larly lame  in  its  methods,  and  unsatisfactory  in  its  re- 
sults. Nothing,  for  instance,  can  be  more  mechanical 
and  unsatisfactory  than  the  system  of  marking,  as  it  is 
pursued,  say,  during  the  first  year  of  college  life.  In 
the  first  place,  the  class  is  put  almost  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  young  and  comparatively  inexperienced  in- 
structors.    At  a  time  when    the    pupil  needs  direction 


1 34  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

and  inspiration,  if  he  ever  does,  he  is  left  almost  entirely 
to  himself,  or  to  those  whose  experiences  of  life  are  so 
limited  that  they  are  not  accepted  as  directors,  and 
whose  lack  of  character  framed  upon  experience  forbids 
the  exercise  of  influence.  The  average  tutor  is  very 
rarely  an  instructor.  The  pupil's  business  is  to  acquire 
from  books  the  power  to  answer  questions,  and  the 
tutor's  business  is  to  ask  the  questions  and  mark  the  re- 
sults to  the  pupil  in  his  answers.  Automata  could  prob- 
ably be  built  to  do  the  work  of  the  tutor,  in  all  essential 
particulars,  and  in  such  a  case  the  result  to  the  pupil 
would  be  much  the  same  that  it  is  now — a  wretched 
grind,  in  which  the  chief  interest  attaches  rather  to  the 
marks  than  to  the  studies. 

Now,  if  the  power  to  answer  questions  is  the  chief  end 
of  man,  or  the  chief  end  of  education,  if  marks  can  be 
made,  or  are  ever  used,  to  measure  manhood,  or  power 
to  reason  or  to  do,  the  present  system  is  much  nearer 
right  than  we  suppose  it  to  be.  But  the  truth  is  that 
marks  tell  nothing  about  a  student,  except  about  his 
power  to  acquire  from  a  book,  and  his  power  to  recite 
glibly  what  he  has  acquired.  For  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  many  a  young  man  has  not  the  power  to  re- 
cite in  a  class-room,  in  the  presence  of  his  mates,  what 
he  has  faithfully  learned,  and  is  thus  made  to  suffer  in 
his  marks,  and,  consequently,  in  his  standing,  for  a  fault 
of  temperament  for  which  he  is  not  responsible.  The 
matter  of  teaching  is,  as  a  rule,  left  out  of  the  tutor's 
functions.  His  business  is  to  hear  recitations,  in  studies 
in  which  he  gives  neither  direction  nor  assistance.  He 
is  a  marker  ;  that  is  his  special  business.  If  "  no  boy 
ever  loved  the  man  who  taught  him  Latin,"  whose  fault 
would  it  be  likely  to  be  ?  The  truth  is  that  when  the 
tasks  of  college  are  irksome  and  hateful  it  is  the  teacher's 
fault,  as  a  rule  ;  for  it  is  within  the  power  of  any  com- 


Education  and  Industry.  165 

pctent  teacher  to  make  any  study  delightful.  When 
students  are  properly  introduced  to  an  author,  or  a 
study,  and  are  really  directed  or  led  by  a  sympathetic 
and  competent  mind,  they  are  happy  in  their  work,  and 
it  is  the  universal  testimony  of  students  that  the  young 
tutor  is  the  hard  man  of  the  college.  They  much  prefer 
to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  older  men.  They  are  treated 
more  like  men  by  the  older  teachers,  and  less  like  ma- 
chines. They  prefer  to  be  in  the  hands  of  men  who 
seem  interested  to  find  out  what  they  know,  and  careless 
to  learn  what  they  don't  know,  and  to  trip  them  upon 
opportunity. 

It  seems  to  us  that  a  great  deal  too  much  of  college 
work  is  put  upon  young  men,  who  may  be  very  acute 
and  very  learned,  but  not  very  wise  ;  and  that  the  sys- 
tem of  marking,  as  at  present  pursued,  is  very  poorly 
calculated  to  nourish  the  self-respect  of  the  young  men 
subjected  to  it.  It  also  forces  into  prominence  a  motive 
of  study  which  is  anything  but  the  best.  The  great 
business  of  the  student  is,  not  to  acquire  knowledge  and 
discipline  and  power,  but  to  get  marks.  This  motive  is 
absolutely  forced  upon  him,  and  it  is  a  mean  and  child- 
ish one,  and  he  knows  and  feels  it,  too,  very  much  at 
the  expense  of  his  self-respect.  His  standing  in  his  class, 
the  reports  of  his  position  to  his  parents,  even  his  power 
to  stay  in  the  college  at  all,  depend  upon  his  marks. 
Marks  are  the  ghosts  that  haunt  him  by  night,  and  the 
phantoms  that  track  him  by  day.  Now  he  knows,  and 
everybody  knows,  that  men  cannot  be  ticketed  off  justly 
in  this  way,  and  he  may  know  that  he  is  ten  times  the 
man  that  another  student  is  who  may  win  better  marks, 
through  his  facility  in  committing  to  memory,  and  re- 
citing off-hand.  We  have  said  that  the  motive  forced 
upon  him  is  a  childish  one.  We  know  many  students 
who   feel   this  keenly,  and   who   believe  with   us   that  if 


1 66  Every -Day    Topics. 

students  were  treated  more  like  men  by  professors  inter- 
ested in  them  and  in  their  progress,  any  apparent  need 
for  treating  them  like  children,  that  may  at  present  exist, 
would  pass  away. 

We  have  said,  also,  that  the  student's  power  to  stay  in 
college  at  all  depends  upon  his  marks.  This  is  the  most 
astounding  thing  connected  with  this  whole  matter.  The 
only  remedy  that  seems  to  have  been  devised  for  the 
treatment  of  a  slow  student,  by  these  great  public  edu- 
cational institutions  whose  real  business  is  to  educate 
him,  is  to  drop  him  ;  and  to  drop  him  is,  nine  times  in 
ten,  to  discourage  him  and  ruin  him.  Can  anything 
more  lame  and  impotent  in  the  way  of  a  conclusion  be 
imagined?  The  result  is  absolutely  rascally  and  crim- 
inal. Tt  is  a  natural  outcome,  however,  of  the  mechani- 
cal system  which  we  regard  as  essentially  vicious.  The 
college  seems  to  be  regarded  by  its  faculty  as  a  great 
mill,  into  which  the  boys  are  turned  as  a  grist.  Every- 
thing that  will  not  go  through  the  hopper  is  thrown  away, 
no  matter  what  personal  powers  and  aspirations,  or 
what  family  hopes  may  go  with  it. 

Of  course  we  understand  the  conveniences  of  the 
marking  system.  It  throws  the  responsibility  of  the 
student's  progress  upon  himself,  and  entirely  relieves  the 
faculty.  That  is  a  very  great  convenience — to  the 
faculty — but,  as  the  college  is  paid  for  educating  him,  it 
is  hardly  fair  to  the  student  himself,  or  his  family.  Then 
it  is  so  much  easier  to  judge  a  man  by  his  power  to  re- 
cite a  lesson,  than  it  is  by  his  power  to  solve  an  intellec- 
tual problem,  or  to  do  an  intellectual  piece  of  work  of 
any  kind!  Then,  still  again,  it  is  a  kind  of  work  that 
can  be  trusted  to  young  men,  who  have  just  gone  through 
the  process  and  are  accustomed  to  the  machinery — in- 
deed, are  products  of  it  ! 

Gentlemen   of  the   college,  is   there  not   some  better 


Education  and  Industry.  167 

way — a  way  that  will  make  more  and  harder  work  for 
you,  perhaps,  but  a  way  that  will  more  thoroughly  nour- 
ish the  sense  of  manhood  among  your  students,  and  give 
them  a  nobler  motive  for  work  than  that  which  you  force 
them  to  regard  as  the  principal  motive— a  nobler  motive 
which  will  make  study  a  joy,  and  invest  them  with  a 
feeling  of  dignity  and  a  sentiment  of  self-respect  ?  To 
treat  students  like  gentlemen,  and  less  like  children  or 
machines,  and  to  come  more  into  contact  with  them  as 
guides  and  teachers,  and  less  as  task-masters,  would,  in 
our  opinion,  make  better  students  out  of  them  and  ex- 
ceedingly better  men.  We  cannot  doubt,  we  may  say, 
in  closing,  that  too  much  college  work  is  given  to  young 
men  to  do.  Their  work  is  drudgery,  perhaps,  vv'hich  the 
older  men  would  gladly  escape,  but  no  work  done  in 
college  should  be  drudgery,  if  pursued  with  the  right 
spirit  and  policy,  and  with  adequate  intelligence. 

Teachers  and  Task-Masters. 

We  are  sorry  for  the  man  who  did  not  have,  at  some 
period  of  his  childhood  or  youth,  one  teacher  who  filled 
him  with  the  enthusiasm  of  study,  and  brought  him  into 
love  with  knowledge  and  into  a  genuine  delight  in  the 
use  of  his  intellectual  powers ;  one  teacher — to  state  it 
briefly — who  understood  his  business.  For,  with  all  the 
advances  made  in  the  theories  and  methods  of  educa- 
tion, and  all  the  elevation  of  educational  standards,  it 
is,  and  remains,  true,  that  the  poorest  work  done  in  the 
world  is  done  in  the  school-room. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  competent  idea  of  what 
education  really  is,  in  the  average  teacher's  mind.  His 
whole  training  has  misled  him,  and  his  own  instincts  and 
common  sense  have  in  no  way  corrected  his  educational 
influences.  His  work  has  been  the  careful  and  indus- 
trious memorizing  of  the  materials  of  his  tcxt-bouks,  and 


1 68  Every- Day   Topics. 

he  has  no  idea  of  educating  others  except  by  the  same 
process.  He  has  never  been  taught  ;  he  has  simply 
been  tasked.  He  is,  consequently,  a  dry  man,  without 
enthusiasm  and  without  ideas  ;  and  the  work  that  he 
does  is  simply  that  of  a  task-master.  A  preacher,  in 
order  to  succeed,  must  not  only  be  an  enthusiast,  but 
he  must  be  profoundly  interested  in  the  kind  of  material 
that  comes  to  his  hand  to  be  molded  and  influenced, 
and  in  the  processes  through  which  he  acts  upon  it.  He 
exercises  all  the  ingenuities  of  address  and  handling,  to 
win  attention,  and  is  never  satisfied  until  he  has  awak- 
ened a  profound  interest  in  the  topics  that  engage  his 
efforts.  Every  live  preacher  has  his  own  way  of  work, 
and  accounts  it  a  misfortune  to  find  himself  lapsing 
into  the  mere  mechanisms  of  his  profession.  So  unlike 
him  is  the  average  teacher,  that  a  pupil  is  always  sur- 
prised to  find  him  an  interesting  person,  who  gets  out- 
side of  his  mechanical  routine  of  duty.  A  teacher's 
duty,  as  it  is  commonly  understood,  is  to  keep  order  and 
hear  recitations.  Beyond  this,  he  is  to  mark  progress 
in  education,  as  he  most  incompetently  understands  it, 
by  arithmetical  formulae.  Nothing  more  uninteresting 
and  mechanical  can  be  imagined  than  the  usual  routine 
of  school. 

Parents  often  wonder  why  their  children  are  not  inter- 
ested in  their  studies.  Why  !  in  the  way  in  which  their 
studies  are  conducted,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  they 
should  be  interested.  The  marvel  is  that  they  have  suf- 
ficient interest  in  their  tasks  to  pursue  them  at  all. 
Machine  education  is  no  more  interesting  than  machine 
preaching.  It  is  simply  a  long,  dry  grind,  which  chil- 
dren are  glad  to  get  through  with,  and  upon  which  they 
look  back  with  anything  but  pleasure  and  satisfaction. 

The  ordinary  teacher  will  naturally  inquire  what  we 
would  have.     It  iii  very  hard  to  tell  an  incompetent  man 


Education  and  Industry.  169 

what  he  cannot  himself  see,  of  the  requirements  of  his 
own  calling  ;  but  we  have  a  very  definite  idea  of  what 
we  desire,  and  of  what  we  believe  to  be  needed.  In  the 
first  place,  no  pupil  should  ever  undertake  a  study  to 
which  he  has  not  been  properly  and  competently  intro- 
duced. The  nature  of  the  study,  its  relations  to  all  other 
study  and  to  life,  the  proper  methods  of  pursuing  it,  the 
literature  connected  with  it — all  these  should  be  presented 
and  explained  in  such  a  way  that  a  pupil  on  beginning  has 
some  idea  of  what  he  is  undertaking,  and  the  reasons 
for  his  undertaking  it.  Then,  from  this  time,  the  edu- 
cator is  to  remember  that  he  is  less  a  task-master  than  a 
teacher,  and  that  if  his  pupils  do  not  get  along  well,  it  is 
mainly  his  fault.  If  they  have  been  properly  presented 
to  the  study,  and  their  way  into  it  has  been  made  inter- 
esting by  his  intelligent  and  enthusiastic  leading,  they 
will  be  interested  ;  otherwise,  not.  We  have  known 
pupils  to  go  through  years  of  study  in  the  mathematics 
without  understanding  anything  as  they  ought  to  do, 
and,  at  last,  to  bring  their  study  to  a  most  fruitless  and 
unsatisfactory  termination,  simply  because  they  had  a 
teacher  who  regarded  himself  as  only  a  task-master,  and 
would  never  take  the  time  and  pains  to  teach  them  and 
make  the  steps  of  their  progress  plain.  No  man  is  fit 
to  teach  who  will  leave  a  pupil  floundering  in  and 
through  a  study  for  the  want  of  intelligent  help  and  di- 
rection. It  is  a  teacher's  business  to  teach,  and  not  to 
leave  his  pupils  to  find  out  what  they  can  themselves, 
and  hold  them  responsible  for  their  own  instruction. 
Education  is  not  the  result  of  memorizing  facts,  nor 
wholly  of  understanding  and  arranging  them,  of  course  ; 
but  so  long  as  we  study  text-books,  and  practically  re- 
cord our  progress  by  means  of  them,  there  is  no  such 
inspirer  as  an  intelligent,  sympathetic  and  enthusiastic 
teacher. 


1 70  Every-Day    Topics. 

The  public  have  not  held  teachers  to  their  true  re- 
sponsibility. We  send  a  young  lad  or  a  young  girl  to 
school,  and  find  that,  while  we  are  paying  out  a  great 
deal  of  money  for  them,  they  are  gaining  nothing.  We 
complain,  and  are  informed  that  our  children  are  not  in- 
dustrious, that  they  do  not  seem  interested  in  their 
studies,  that  they  are  absorbed  in  play,  etc.,  etc.  In 
ninety-nine  cases  in  a  hundred,  our  disappointment  is 
entirely  the  fault  of  the  teacher.  He  or  she  is  simply 
incompetent  for  the  duty  they  have  undertaken.  A  first- 
class  teacher  always  has  good  pupils.  Lack  of  interest 
in  study  is  always  the  result  of  poor  teaching.  We  send 
a  boy  to  college,  and  find  that  he  regards  his  studies  as 
a  grind — that  he  is  only  interested  in  getting  good 
marks,  and  that  he  is  getting  no  scholarly  tastes,  and 
winning  no  scholarly  delights.  We  inquire,  and  find 
him  in  the  hands  of  a  young  tutor,  without  experience, 
who  really  pretends  to  be  no  more  than  a  task-master, 
and  who  knows  nothing,  and  seems  to  care  nothing, 
about  the  office  of  teaching.  The  placing  of  large 
masses  of  young  men  in  the  hands  of  inexperienced  per- 
sons, who  do  not  pretend  to  do  more  than  to  set  tasks 
and  record  the  manner  in  which  they  are  performed, 
without  guidance  or  assistance,  is  a  gross  imposition  of 
the  college  upon  a  trusting  public,  and  it  is  high  time 
that  an  outcry  so  determined  and  persistent  is  raised 
against  it  that  it  shall  procure  a  reform. 

College  Trustees  and  Professors. 
We  suppose  there  are  few  successful  professional  and 
literary  men  who  do  not  receive  many  letters  from  the 
young,  asking  for  their  advice  on  matters  relating  to  a 
career.  There  is  a  sense  of  ignorance  and  a  yearning 
for  direction  among  large  masses  of  bright  and  ambi- 
tious   young  men,  that  seek    for   satisfaction  in  a  great 


Education  and  Industry.  171 

variety  of  ways.  Now,  there  is  no  influence  that  goes 
so  far  with  these  as  an  example.  They  are  pecuUarly 
inspired  by  a  great  practical  life,  which  wins,  or  drives 
its  way  successfully  through  the  world  ;  and  the  call  for 
prescriptive  advice  is  simply  a  declaration  of  the  ab- 
sence of  inspiring  example  within  the  immediate  vision 
of  the  applicants.  It  is  as  natural  for  a  young  man  to 
look  for  a  model,  and  to  put  himself  under  the  influence 
of  an  inspiring  personality,  as  it  is  to  breathe  ;  and 
when  and  where  this  inspiration  is  wanting,  we  shall 
always  find  young  men  seeking  for  counsel. 

In  view  of  what  seem  to  be  the  facts  of  the  case,  we 
are  compelled  to  believe  that  this  matter  is  made  small 
account  of  in  the  appointment  of  college  officers.  To 
begin  with  the  trustees:  we  would  like  to  inquire  what 
motives  usually  prevail  in  determining  their  election. 
It  happens  that  there  are,  here  and  there,  boards  of 
trustees  at  the  head  of  our  literary  institutions,  made  up 
of  men  who  are  really  inspiring  powers  upon  the  stu- 
dents and  professors  alike  ;  and  it  is  notorious  that  there 
are  others,  and  perhaps,  the  majority,  who  are  held  by 
both  in  contempt.  They  are  ignorant,  incapable  of  good 
except  as  they  may  be  led  by  the  faculties  under  them, 
niggardly,  short-sighted,  conservative,  illiberal,  and  with 
no  more  apprehension  of  the  high  duties  of  their  office 
and  the  march  of  improvement,  and  the  growing  necessi- 
ties and  requirements  of  the  times,  than  they  would  be 
if  they  were  made  of  wood  and  iron.  A  board  of  trus- 
tees of  this  stamp  is,  of  course,  a  clog  upon  any  institu- 
tion. How  many  boards  like  this,  held  either  in  good- 
natured  or  ill-natured  contempt  by  the  professors  and 
students  under  them,  have  we  in  the  country  ?  We  fear 
tliat  there  are  a  great  many,  made  up  of  men  who  have 
been  placed  in  trust  because  they  have  influence  in  the 
financial  world — because  they  have  money  and    need  to 


1/2  Every -Day    Topics. 

be  flattered  into  leaving  endowments — because  they  have 
intrigued  for  the  eminence  which  has  been  bestowed 
upon  them — because  they  have  shown  themselves  wise 
in  scheming  for  themselves  in  fields  that  have  no  alliance 
Avith  learning. 

Now,  the  college  trustee  ought  to  be  a  man,  not  only 
of  learning,  but  of  an  eminence  that  grows,  and  can  only 
grow,  out  of  learning,  or  in  association  with  it — a  man 
who  knows  the  needs  of  a  college  not  only  because  he 
has  been  through  it,  but  because  he  knows  the  world, 
takes  the  measure  of  his  time,  sees  the  drift  of  progress, 
apprehends  opportunities.  He  should  be  a  man  whose 
presence  is  an  inspiration — a  man  whose  life,  blossoming 
with  culture  and  crowned  with  success,  is  a  stimulant 
and  a  tonic  upon  all  the  college  life,  alike  of  professors 
and  students.  The  difference  in  the  influence  of  a  board 
of  trustees,  made  up  of  men  of  whom  such  a  man  is  the 
type,  and  one  made  up  of  the  ordinary  trustee  material, 
is  so  great  that  the  observing  outsider  can  only  wonder 
that  the  prevalent  absurdity  can  live  for  a  year.  We 
should  like  to  know  how  many  boards  of  faculty  are  at 
this  moment  making  all  their  progress  in  spite  of  stupid 
trustees,  who  lie  back  in  their  breeching  like  mules  flap- 
ping their  hybrid  ears  in  protest ! 

Something  was  said  in  the  editorial  pages  of  this 
magazine  last  month  on  the  need  of  literary  men  as 
professors  of  literature  in  our  colleges.  The  article  of 
Professor  Beers  upon  Yale,  which  appeared  in  Scribncr 
some  months  a;;;o,  recognized  the  literary  bent  of  the 
Cambridge  students  as  a  somewhat  distinctive  charac- 
teristic of  Harvard,  though  he  attributed  it  to  another 
cause  than  the  influence  of  Lowell  and  Longfellow.  A 
recent  editorial  in  the  New  York  Ttjncs  took  strong 
ground  in  favor  of  literary  men  in  literary  professorships. 

liut  there  is  a  wider  view  to  take  of  this  whole  subject. 


Education  and  Lidustry.  173 

The  college  professor,  as  a  rule,  is  bound  up  in  his 
specialty.  He  has  but  one  side  to  him,  and  that  is 
always  turned  toward  the  college.  He  has  no  side 
turned  toward  the  world.  He  teaches  within  the  walls 
what  he  has  learned,  and  betrays  no  fructification  of 
thought  and  life  in  production.  He  gets  into  his  rut, 
which  grows  deeper  and  deeper  with  the  passing  years 
until,  at  last,  his  head  sinks  below  the  surface,  and  he 
loses  sight  of  the  world  and  the  world  of  him.  Now,  the 
difference  in  their  influence  upon  a  student,  between 
such  a  man  as  this  and  one  who  writes  successfully— or 
preaches  successfully — or  speaks  successfully — or  inves- 
tigates successfully  in  new  fields,  must  be,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  very  great  To  the  professor  who  has  met  the 
world's  life  in  any  way,  and  won  a  place  in  the  world's 
thought  and  regard,  and  become  an  outside  power  and 
influence,  the  student  turns  as  naturally  for  instruction 
and  inspiration  as  a  flower  turns  toward  the  sun.  Even 
a  single  professor  in  an  academic  institution,  who  shows 
by  attractive  production  that  his  learning  has  really  fruc- 
tified his  mind,  will  have  more  influence  in  determining 
the  college  life,  and  that  which  goes  out  from  it,  than  all 
the  rest  of  the  faculty  put  together.  The  students  know 
that  they  arc  to  meet  and,  if  possible,  to  master  life. 
There  is  nut  a  bright  one  among  them  who  docs  not 
know  that  his  learning  will  avail  him  little  if  it  docs  not 
give  him  practical  power  ;  so  that  every  exhibition  of 
that  power  among  those  who  teach  him  leads  and  in- 
spires him. 

Suppose  such  a  man  as  George  William  Curtis  were 
at  the  head  of  a  college  department — a  man  ready  and 
graceful  in  speech,  acute  in  politics,  facile  and  accom- 
])lished  in  all  literary  expression,  familiar  with  history, 
courteous  and  happy  in  social  intercourse — what  would 
be  the  effect  upon  the   students    under  him,  compared 


174  Every -Day    Topics. 

with  that  of  a  professor  who  only  knows  the  duties  of  his 
chair,  and  who  is  but  a  helpless  baby  outside  of  it  ?  To 
ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it,  and  cover  our  whole 
argument.  The  culture  and  drift  of  the  college  would 
be  toward  him,  not  at  all  because  he  would  be  a  teacher, 
but  because  he  would  be  an  inspirer.  Take  such  a  man 
as  Julius  Seelye,  who  has  just  been  elected  to  the  presi- 
dency of  Amherst — a  man  who  is  a  recognized  power  in 
the  pulpit — who  presents  the  argument  for  Christianity 
to  the  wise  men  of  India — who  demonstrates  the  fact 
that,  although  he  is  a  teacher  and  a  preacher,  he  is  quite 
capable  of  statesmanship  in  the  halls  of  national  legis- 
lation, and  compare  his  influence  upon  a  body  of  stu- 
dents with  that  of  the  average  college  president. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  there  is  nothing  which  our 
colleges  need  more  than  men  of  public  power  and  influ- 
ence—men who  can  not  only  teach  their  specialties,  bu*, 
by  their  life  and  example,  point  the  way  to  usefulness, 
and  influence  upon  the  world — men  who  have  a  side  for 
the  world  as  well  as  for  the  college,  and  who,  by  their 
knowledge  of  the  world,  and  the  practical  ways  of  reach- 
ing it  and  acting  upon  it,  are  able  to  guide  and  inspire 
as  well  as  to  instruct  and  enrich. 

An  Aspect  of  the  Labor  Question. 
There  is  probably  no  country  in  which  heredity  has 
played  so  unimportant  a  part  in  the  national  employ- 
ment as  it  has  in  America.  No  true  American  child 
thinks  the  better  of  a  calling  from  the  fact  that  his  father 
has  followed  it.  In  European  countries,  especially  upon 
the  continent,  men  inherit  the  trades  and  callings  of 
their  fathers.  Here,  they  are  quite  apt  to  despise  them 
and  to  leave  them.  Our  farmers'  boys  and  the  sons  of 
our  blacksmiths  and  carpenters  all  try  for  something 
higher—  for   an  employment   that   may  be    considered 


Education  and  Industry.  175 

more  genteel.  This  is  the  result  of  certain  ideas  that 
were  early  put  afloat  in  the  American  mind,  and  have 
been  sedulously  cultivated — in  the  newspapers,  in  books 
prepared  for  the  young,  and  in  the  public  schools.  Every 
boy  has  been  told  more  than  once — indeed,  most  boys 
have  had  it  drilled  into  them — that  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States  is  within  their  reach  ;  that  it  is  a  part  of 
their  business  to  raise  themselves  and  better  themselves  ; 
especially,  to  raise  themselves  above  the  condition  to 
which  they  were  born.  Somehow  or  other,  in  the  nur- 
ture of  these  ideas  there  have  been  developed  certain 
opinions,  with  relation  to  the  different  callings  of  life, 
as  regards  gentility,  respectability,  and  desirableness 
for  social  reasons.  The  drift  of  the  American  mind  has 
been  away  from  all  those  employments  which  involve 
hard  manual  labor.  The  farm  is  not  popular  with  the 
American  young  man.  The  idea  of  learning  a  useful 
trade  is  not  a  popular  one  with  the  typical  American 
lad,  or  even  with  his  parents.  If  he  get  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, he  must  become  a  professional  man.  If  he  get  a 
tolerable  education,  he  must  become  a  semi-professional 
— a  dentist  perhaps,  or  the  follower  of  some  genteel  em- 
ployment of  that  sort.  He  drifts  away  from  his  farm 
into  some  of  the  centres  of  trade  and  manufactures  ;  he 
becomes  a  clerk  in  a  store,  or  a  teacher  of  a  school,  or  a 
practiser  of  some  art  that  relieves  him  from  the  drudgery 
of  the  farm  and  has  an  air  of  greater  respectability. 

The  young  man's  sisters  are  affected  by  the  same 
ideas.  Housework,  to  them,  is  low  work,  menial  work. 
It  is  not  respectable.  They  go  into  factories,  they  be- 
come what  are  denominated  "  sales-ladies."  Even  the 
poor  people  who  have  hard  work  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together  are  affected  by  these  same  notions.  We  know 
of  families  where  the  ilaughters  are  not  taught  to  se\\', 
where  they  are  instructed  in  none  of  the  niore  useful  arts, 


1/6  Every- Day    Topics. 

and  where  they  aspire  to  raise  themselves  to  professions 
of  various  sorts,  to  anything  but  manual  work.  The 
consequence  is  that  in  days  of  business  depression,  when 
labor  is  hard  to  procure,  and  those  who  have  money  are 
obliged  to  cut  ofif  some  part  of  their  luxuries,  these  peo- 
ple are  stranded  in  gentility  and  their  genteel  notions, 
and  are  the  most  helpless  part  of  our  population.  They 
can  do  nothing  useful,  and  are  absolutely  cut  off  from 
all  sources  of  revenue.  Some  of  the  most  pitiful  cases 
we  have  met  during  the  past  five  years  have  been  cases 
of  this  character.  One  lady  tells  us  :  "  My  girls  are 
as  good  as  anybody's  girls  !  " — a  statement  which  we 
deny,  because  they  are  not  able  to  make  their  own 
dresses  or  cook  their  own  food.  And  the  fact  that  her 
girls  are  as  good  as  anybody's  girls  is  regarded  as  a  mat- 
ter of  pride,  when  they  are  as  helpless  as  babes,  and 
when  they  are  actually  ashamed  to  undertake  any  useful 
work  whatever,  unless  that  work  happen  to  square  with 
their  notions  of  gentility. 

We  feel  that  this  is  all  a  mistake.  Heaven  forbid  that 
we  should  suppress  any  man's  or  any  woman's  aspirations 
after  excellence  or  after  improvement  of  personal  posi- 
tion. We  understand  all  this,  and  sympathize  with  it 
all.  But  it  is  not  possible  that  the  whole  American  peo- 
ple can  rise  out  of  ordinary,  useful  LTbor,  into  high  posi- 
tion. It  is  not  possible  that  every  lad  who  goes  to  a  dis- 
trict school  can  become  President  of  the  United  States. 
These  useful  employments  on  the  farm  and  in  the  shop 
of  the  mechanic  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  our  national  pros- 
perity. This  work  must  be  done,  and  somebody  must 
do  it — and  those  who  are  best  adapted  to  it  must  do  it. 
No  greater  wrong  can  be  done  to  a  lad  than  to  lift  him 
from  the  employment  to  which  he  is  best  adapted  into 
something  which  seems  to  him  to  be  higher.  In  these 
days,  the  foreigner  is  the  man,  as  a  rule,  who  docs  the 


Education  and  Industry.  177 

work.  In  travelling  over  the  country,  if  one  loses  a  shoe 
from  a  horse,  the  chances  are  many  that  the  blacksmith 
he  will  find  at  the  wayside  will  be  an  Irishman.  The  old 
Yankee  blacksmith  has  "  gone  out,"  as  we  say,  and  wo 
arc  to-day  dependent  upon  the  person  we  import  from 
Europe  for  the  work  that  is  necessary  to  carry  on  the 
farm,  for  the  work  that  is  necessary  to  carry  on  our  man- 
ufactures, both  in  a  large  and  in  a  small  way,  for  the 
work  of  the  kitchen,  and  for  all  the  service  of  the  house- 
hold. 

It  is  very  hard  for  a  man  who  has  been  bred  an  Ameri- 
can to  conceive  of  such  a  thing  as  over-education  for 
what  are  known  as  the  common  people.  Yet  there  is 
something  in  the  education  of  our  common  people,  or 
something  in  the  ideas  which  have  been  imbibed  in  the 
course  of  their  education,  which  seems  to  unfit  them  for 
their  work,  which  makes  them  discontented,  which  dis- 
turbs them,  and  makes  it  well-nigh  impossible  for  them 
to  accept  the  conditions  of  the  lot  into  which  they  are 
born,  and  the  employments  which  have  been  followed 
by  their  parents.  It  has  become,  indeed,  a  very  serious 
matter,  and  deserves  the  profound  attention  of  our  edu- 
cators and  political  economists.  If  by  any  study  or  any 
ciiance  we  could  learn  the  cause  of  these  great  changes 
and  obviate  it,  it  would  be  a  boon  to  the  American  peo- 
ple. As  it  is  to-day,  the  avenues  to  what  are  called  gen- 
teel employments  are  choked  with  the  crowds  pushing 
mto  them  from  our  public  schools.  Young  men  with 
;;ood  muscles  and  broad  backs  are  standing  behind  shop- 
men's counters,  who  ought  to  be  engaged  in  some  more 
manly  pursuits,  who  would  have  a  better  outlook  before 
them  and  would  have  a  better  life  and  more  self-respect, 
if  they  were  doing  a  man's  work  behind  a  plough  or  be- 
hind a  plane.  There  are  women  in  large  numbers  striv- 
ing for  genteel  employments,  who  would  be  a  thousand 
8* 


178  Every -Day   Topics. 

times  better  in  body  and  mind,  if  they  were  engaged  in 
household  work.  There  are  men  and  women  even  in 
hard  times,  when  they  hardly  know  where  their  next 
meal  is  coming  from,  and  have  not  the  slightest  idea 
how  they  are  to  procure  their  next  new  garment,  who 
are  still  very  difficult  to  please  in  the  matter  of  work,  and 
who  will  crowd  their  daughters  into  stores  and  shops, 
rather  than  apprentice  them  to  dress-makers  where  they 
may  learn  a  useful  trade  and  earn  increased  wages.  In 
the  meantime,  the  more  sensible  foreigner  is  picking  up 
industriously  and  carefully  all  the  threads  dropped  in 
those  industries  which  were  once  purely  American,  and 
the  Americans  pure  and  simple  are  becoming  ruinously 
and  absurdly  genteel. 

Great  Shopkeepers. 
There  are  certain  advantages  that  come  to  the  com- 
munity through  the  existence  of  great  fortunes.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  it  is  better  for  a  man  to  hire  a  house  of 
one  who  owns  a  hundred  houses  than  to  hire  the  only 
house  a  man  owns.  The  Astors  are  good  landlords,  be- 
cause their  money  is  all  invested  in  houses.  The  rent- 
ing of  houses  is  their  business.  Their  estates  are  large 
— gigantic,  in  fact,  and,  so  that  they  get  a  good  tenant, 
and  a  constant  one,  they  are  content  with  a  moderate 
percentage  on  their  investment.  They  have  money 
enough  to  keep  their  property  in  good  repair,  and  they 
do  not  feel  compelled  to  press  a  tenant  to  the  highest 
possible  price.  There  are  certain  advantages  that  come 
to  the  community  and  the  country  through  such  a  for- 
tune as  that  of  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  invested  and 
managed  as  he  invests  and  manages  it.  A  man  whose 
fortune  lifts  him  above  the  temptation  to  steal,  and  who 
possesses  large  organizing  and  administrative  capacities, 
may  be  a  genuine  public  benefactor,  in  the  handling  of 


Education  and  Industry.  ij) 

great  corporate  interests.  There  is  no  question,  we 
suppose,  that  the  great  railroad  over  which  Commodore 
Vanderbilt  has  exercised  control  for  the  last  decade, 
has  been  better  managed  for  the  country  and  the  stock- 
holders than  it  ever  was  before.  The  road  has  been 
improved,  it  has  been  well  run,  it  has  accommodated 
the  public,  it  has  paid  its  employes,  it  has  paid  dividends, 
it  has  paid  its  interest. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  there  must  be  large  accumulations 
of  capital  in  private  hands,  in  order  that  the  people  may 
get  many  of  the  necessaries  of  life  cheaply.  The  book 
that  a  man  buys  for  five  dollars  may,  and  often  does, 
cost  fifty  thousand  to  prepare  for  the  press.  The  shirt- 
ing that  a  laboring  man  wears  can  only  be  purchased 
cheaply  because  some  man,  or  combination  of  men, 
have  been  willing  to  risk  half  a  million  or  a  million  of 
dollars  in  the  erection  and  appointment  of  a  mill.  The 
simple  plated  service  of  a  mechanic's  tea-table  could 
only  be  produced  at  its  price  in  an  establishment  costing 
immense  sums  of  money,  and  employing  large  numbers 
of  men,  who  are  equally  benefited  with  the  purchasers 
of  the  ware  produced.  There  are  a  thousand  ways  in 
which  great  capitalists  are  of  daily  benefit  to  the  world. 

New  York  has  just  been  called  upon  to  bury  its  great 
shopkeeper.  The  name  of  A.  T.  Stewart  was  known 
throughout  the  vvorld.  He  had  amassed  a  colossal  for- 
tune, he  had  lived  a  reputable  life,  he  had  done,  and  he 
was  doing  at  the  time  of  his  decease,  a  larger  business 
in  his  way  than  any  other  man  in  the  world.  \Vc  have 
no  criticisms  of  the  man  to  offer,  lie  made  his  immense 
accumvilations  by  what  is  called  "  legitimate  trade  ;  "  he 
did  what  he  would  with  his  own  ;  he  left  it  as  he  chose  to 
leave  it.  We  share  the  common  disappointment  that  he 
who  seemed  so  competent  to  win  money  for  his  own 
benefit  failed  to   dispose  of  it   in  such  a  way  as  to  w- 


I  So  Every-Day   Topics. 

dound  to  his  everlasting  renown.  We  are  sorry  for  his 
own  sake,  and  the  city's  sake,  that  he  did  not  associate 
with  his  name  some  great  gift  to  the  pubUc,  which  would 
embalm  him  in  the  affectionate  memory  of  a  people  from 
whose  purses  he  took  the  profits  that  made  him  super- 
fluously rich.  It  would  have  been  a  good  thing  for  him 
to  do,  but  he  has  lost  his  chance,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
be  said  or  done  about  it. 

This,  however,  may  be  said — and  this  is  what  we 
started  to  say — his  business  was  one  which  he  did  not 
do,  and  could  not  do,  without  a  depressing  influence 
upon  all  who  were  dependent  upon  the  same  business 
for  a  livelihood.  His  great  establishment  was  a  shadow 
that  hung  over  all  the  others  in  the  town.  The  man 
with  ten  or  twenty  thousand  dollars  ;  the  man  with  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  ;  the  man  with  one  thousand 
dollars,  each,  alike,  was  obliged  to  compete  with  this 
man,  who  had  millions  outside  of  the  necessities  of  his 
enormous  business.  The  hosier,  the  hatter,  the  woman 
in  her  thread-and-needle  shop,  the  milliner,  the  glove- 
dealer,  the  carpet-dealer,  the  upholsterer,  all  were 
obliged  to  compete  with  Stewart.  If  he  had  followed  a 
single  line  of  business,  it  would  have  been  different  ;  but 
he  followed  all  lines.  Wherever  he  saw  a  profit  to  be 
made,  in  any  line  of  business  that  Avas  at  all  congruous 
with  dry-goods,  he  made  it.  He  thus  became  a  formi- 
dable competitor  with  half  the  shopkeepers  in  New 
York.  His  capital  made  it  possible  for  him  to  ruin  men 
by  the  turn  of  his  hand — to  fix  prices  at  which  every- 
body was  obliged  to  sell  at  whatever  loss.  However 
proud  the  New  Yorker  may  have  been  of  his  wonderful 
establishment — and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  pretty 
universally  regarded  with  pride — it  is  easy  now  to  see 
that  our  business  men  at  large  would  be  in  a  much  better 
condition  if  that  establishment  had  never  existed.     If  all 


Education  and  Industry.  i8i 

the  money  that  has  gone  to  swell  his  useless  estate  had 
been  divided  among  small  dealers,  hundreds  of  stores, 
now  idle,  would  be  occupied,  and  multitudes  of  men 
now  in  straitened  circumstances,  would  be  comparatively 
prosperous. 

But  it  is  said  that  he  employed  a  great  many  people. 
Yes,  he  did  ;  but  did  he  pay  them  well  ?  Would  they 
not  have  been  better  paid  in  the  employ  of  others.  The 
necessities  of  his  position,  and  his  ambition,  compelled 
him  to  pay  small  prices.  The  great  mass  of  those  who 
served  him  worked  hard  for  the  bread  that  fed  them,  and 
the  clothes  that  covered  them.  The  public  bought 
cheaply  ;  the  outside  dealers  suffered  ;  the  employds 
laid  up  no  money,  and  Mr.  Stewart  got  rich.  Under  the 
circumitanccs,  and  under  the  necessities  of  the  case,  was 
it  desirable  that  he  should  get  rich  ?  We  think  not ; 
and  we  think  that  the  final  result  of  this  great  shop- 
keeping  success  is  deplorable  in  every  way.  It  has  ab- 
sorbed the  prosperities  of  a  great  multitude  of  men  and 
women.  New  York  would  be  richer,  happier,  more 
comfortable,  more  healthy  in  all  its  business  aspects,  if 
the  great  store  at  Tenth  Street  had  never  been  built. 
Five  hundred  men  who  invest  their  little  capital  in  the 
varied  lines  of  business,  and  pay  their  modest  rent,  and 
devote  their  time  to  their  affairs,  content  with  profits  that 
give  them  and  their  families  a  fair  living  and  a  few  sav- 
ings for  a  rainy  day,  are  certainly  better  for  a  city  than 
a  single  Stewart,  who  absorbs  their  business  and  leaves 
them  in  distress. 

No,  we  want  no  more  great  shopkeepers.  We  trust 
we  may  never  have  another  Stewart  ;  and  we  say  this 
with  all  due  respect  to  his  memory  and  the  marvellous 
skill  with  which  he  managed  his  affairs.  Such  fortunes 
as  his,  won  in  such  a  way,  can  never  be  accumulated 
without  detriment  to  the  i:cneral  business  of  a  citv  like 


1 82  Every-Day    Topics. 

ours.     They  do  nobody  any  good  ;  they  do  a  great  mul- 
titude of  people  an  irremediable  injury. 

Industrial  Education. 
There  are  certain  facts  of  current  history  which  give 
great  importance  to  the  subject  of  industrial  education. 
It  is  notorious,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  old  system  of 
apprenticship  has  almost  entirely  gone  into  disuse.  How 
the  American  artisan  gets  the  knowledge  and  skill  which 
enable  him  to  work  at  a  trade,  is  not  obvious.  In  one 
way  or  another  he  manages  to  do  -  it ;  but  the  approach 
to  a  mechanical  employment  has  practically  ceased  to 
be  through  an  old-fashioned  apprenticeship.  Among 
the  causes  that  have  conspired  to  procure  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  old  system,  may  first  be  mentioned  the  influ- 
ence of  common  schools.  Quarrel  with  the  fact  as  we 
may,  it  cannot  be  successfully  denied  that  the  influence 
of  common  schools  has  been  to  unfit  those  subjected  to 
their  processes  and  social  influences  for  the  common 
employments  of  life.  The  lad  who  has  made  a  successful 
beginning  of  the  cultivation  of  his  intellect,  docs  not 
like  the  idea  of  getting  a  living  by  the  skilful  use  of  his 
muscles,  in  a  mechanical  employment.  It  does  not  ac- 
count for  everything  to  say  that  he  gets  above  it.  It  is 
enough  that  he  likes  the  line  of  intellectual  development 
in  which  he  finds  himself,  and  has  no  taste  for  bodily 
labor.  So  he  goes  further,  or  stopping  altogether,  seeks 
some  light  employment  demanding  his  grade  of  culture 
or  tries  to  get  his  living  by  his  wits.  IMechanical  em- 
ployments are  passing  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of 
foreigners.  General  Armstrong,  of  the  colored  college 
at  Hampton,  in  a  recent  search  for  blacksmiths'  shops 
:it  the  North  where  he  might  safely  place  a  number  of 
Indian  lads,  found  no  Americans  to  deal  with.  Every 
blacksmith  was  an  Irishman. 


Education  and  Industry.  183 

If  it  is  asked  why  there  is  not  a  universal  effort  made 
for  the  reinstatement  of  the  apprentice-systems,  we  re- 
ply that  that  there  is  a  very  ugly  lion  in  the  way.  An 
item  of  news  which  has  just  gone  the  round  of  the  papers 
states  the  case  as  it  stands.  A  piano-maker  complained 
that  he  could  not  get  men  enough  to  do  his  work,  the 
reason  being  that  his  men  belonged  to  a  society  that  had 
taken  upon  itself  to  regulate  the  number  of  apprentices 
he  could  be  permitted  to  instruct  in  the  business.  They 
had  limited  this  number  to  one  utterly  insufficient  to 
supply  the  demand,  and  he  was  powerless.  They  had 
even  cut  down  the  number,  recently,  so  that  there  was 
no  way  for  him  but  to  import  his  workmen,  already  in- 
structed, from  abroad.  In  brief,  there  is  a  conspiracy 
among  society-men,  all  over  the  country,  to  keep 
American  boys  out  of  the  useful  trades  ;  and  industrial 
education  is  thus  under  the  ban  of  an  outrageous  despot- 
ism which  ought  to  be  put  down  by  the  strong  hand  of 
the  law.  It  is  thus  seen  that  while  the  common  school 
naturally  turns  the  great  multitude  of  its  attendants  away 
from  manual  employments,  those  who  still  feel  inclined 
to  enter  upon  them  have  no  freedom  to  do  so,  because  a 
great  army  of  society-men  stand  firmly  in  the  way,  over- 
ruling employer  and  employed  alike. 

Now,  there  are  two  points  which  we  would  like  to 
present  : 

1.  The  public  school,  as  at  present  conducted,  not  only 
does  not  Jit  boys  and  girls  for  the  luork  of  taking  care  of 
themselves  and  their  depcjidents,  but  absolutely  hinders 
them  from  undertaking  it,  ok  engenders  ideas  that  are 
impracticable  or  misleading. 

2.  That  the  public  has  to  pay  in  some  way  for  all  the 
ignorance  of  practical  life  in  luliich  the  public  school 
leai'es  its  pu fills. 

The  pauperism  that  grows  out  of  this  ignorance  is  an 


I  ?4  Every-Day   Topics. 

almost  intolerable  burden  upon  the  public  purse.  The 
crime  that  attends  it  is  so  notable  that  all  who  are 
familiar  with  the  subject  know  that  a  very  large  percen- 
tage of  culprits  and  convicts  never  learned  a  trade. 
When  a  man  of  low  moral  sense  and  weak  will  finds  that 
he  knows  no  trade  by  which  he  can  make  a  living,  he  be- 
comes a  thief  by  a  process  as  natural  as  breathing.  Pau- 
perism and  crime  are,  therefore,  the  inevitable  result  of 
ignorance  in  the  way  of  taking  care  of  one's  self  and 
earning  one's  living.  The  question  of  expense  is  one 
which  an  intelligent  and  enterprising  public  ought  easily 
to  settle.  This  ignorance  is  to  cost  money.  Shall  this 
money  be  paid  for  the  purpose  of  removing  the  igno- 
rance, and  obviating  the  necessity  for  pauperism  and 
crime,  or  shall  it  be  paid  for  the  pauperism  and  crime? 

We  know,  or  appreciate,  the  practical  difficulties  that 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  system  of  industrial  schools,  sup- 
ported by  public  tax,  but  surely  if  it  is  needed— impera- 
tively needed — American  ingenuity  will  be  sufficient  to 
give  it  practical  direction,  and  secure  a  satisfactory  re- 
sult. Our  good  neighbors  in  Boston  have  been  trying  to 
do  something,  more  particularly  for  the  girls.  They 
have  introduced  not  only  plain  sewing  into  their  school, 
but  the  making  of  dresses  and  other  garments.  Only 
two  hours  of  each  week  arc  devoted  to  the  matter,  and 
twenty-nine  special  teachers  employed,  but  the  results 
are  most  encouraging.  Mrs.  Jonathan  Sturges  and  her 
associates  in  the  Wilson  Industrial  School  for  Girls,  of 
this  city,  more  than  a  year  ago  appealed  to  the  New 
York  Board  of  Education  oij  behalf  of  the  project  of  in- 
troducing sewing  into  our  public  schools  here,  and 
backed  their  appeal  by  this  quotation  from  a  Boston  re- 
port :  "  Every  girl  who  passes  through  the  Boston 
schools  now  receives  three  years'  instruction  in  various 
kinds  of  needlework,  and  is  capable  of  being  an  expert 


Education  and  Industry.  185 

seamstress.  It  is  said  the  benefits  resulting  from  this 
instruction  are  seen  in  the  appearance  of  the  children's 
clothing  in  the  schools,  and  are  felt  in  thousands  of 
homes."  Now,  we  ask  our  Board  of  Education  if  they 
have  anything  to  show,  in  their  reports  of  the  last  ten 
years,  that  is  calculated  to  give  a  practical  man  or 
woman  the  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  be  found  in  such 
an  announcement  as  this.  Can  they  not  see  that  what 
these  girls  in  Boston  have  learned  in  this  way,  with  a 
comparatively  small  expenditure  of  time  and  money,  is 
of  incalculable  value  ?  What  is  a  little  less  of  algebra, 
or  geography,  or  even  of  arithmetic,  by  the  side  of  this 
surpassing  gain  ? 

Well,  our  Board  reported  against  Mrs.  Sturgcs, 
though  Commissioner  Wheeler  presented  a  minority  re- 
port in  favor,  very  much  to  his  credit  ;  and  now  wc 
assure  our  good  friends  of  the  Board  that  this  subject 
will  not  down,  and  that  the  times  and  the  public  exigency 
demand  that  they  shall  take  the  matter  up  again,  and 
treat  it  effectively  in  the  interest  of  the  public  welfare, 
safety  and  economy.  Their  own  nautical  school  in- 
dorses the  principle  involved.  Even  the  Normal  Col- 
lege and  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York  may,  i:i 
one  sense,  be  considered  industrial  schools.  Teacliir.;; 
is  an  industry,  and  these  institutions,  supported  at  the 
public  charge,  are  mainly  devoted  to  preparing  men 
and  women  for  the  pursuit  of  that  industry.  It  would  be 
the  brightest  feather  that  New  York  ever  won  for  her 
cap  if  she  would  establish  a  great  free  industrial  school, 
in  which  boys  could  get  instruction  in  the  mechanic  arts, 
so  that  every  poor  boy  could  learn  a  trade. 

There  certainly  is  no  good  reason  why  we  should  not, 
at  least,  do  for  our  girls  what  Boston  has  done  for  hers, 
even  if  the  boys  are  obliged  to  wait  awhile  longer. 


1 86  Every -Day   Topics. 

Industrial  Education  Again, 
To  those  who  look  intelligently  and  thoughtfully  upon 
the  popular  life  of  the  nation,  a  certain  great  and  nota- 
ble want  manifests  itself — a  want  that  is  comparatively 
new,  and  that  demands  a  new  adjustment  of  our  educa- 
ting forces.  At  the  time  when  the  public  school  system 
of  our  country  was  founded,  nearly  everybody  was  poor, 
and  the  girls  of  every  family,  in  the  absence  of  hired  ser- 
vice, were  necessarily  taught,  not  only  to  knit  and  sew, 
but  to  cook  and  keep  the  house.  Then  women  could 
not  only  weave  but  make  up  the  garments  which  they 
wore,  and  keep  them  in  repair.  At  the  same  time,  boys 
were  taught  to  do  the  farm  work  of  their  fathers,  and,  in 
case  they  chose  a  mechanical  employment,  they  entered 
an  apprenticeship,  under  regulations  well  understood 
and  approved  at  the  time.  In  short,  there  were  ways 
by  which  every  and  girl  and  boy  could  learn  to  take  care 
of  themselves  and  the  families  that  afterward  came  to 
them. 

Various  changes  have  come  over  the  country  since 
that  day.  In  the  first  place,  a  great  change  has  been 
made  in  the  course  and  amount  of  study  in  the  schools 
themselves.  So  great  has  been  the  pressure  of  study 
upon  the  schools  of  some  of  our  cities,  that  physicians 
have  united  to  protest  against  it  as  a  prolific  source  of 
insanity.  Girls,  for  instance,  cannot  fulfil  the  require- 
ments of  their  teachers  and  have  any  time  at  home  to 
learn  any  of  the  household  arts  which  are  so  necessary 
to  them,  not  only  as  wives  and  mothers,  but  as  maidens 
having  only  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Boys  are  ab- 
sorbed by  their  studies  in  the  same  way,  and  the  ap- 
prenticeship system  has  been  given  up  ;  our  foreign 
mechanics  have,  through  their  trades  unions,  entered 
into  a  thoroughly  organized    conspiracy   against    it.     A 


Education  and  Industry.  187 

boy  is  not  at  liberty  now  to  decide  what  handicraft  lie 
will  learn,  because  the  boss  is  shamefully  in  the  hands 
of  his  despotic  workmen,  and  the  workmen  decide  that 
the  fewer  their  number  the  better  wages  they  will  get. 
Their  declared  policy  is  to  limit  apprenticeships  to  the 
smallest  possible  number. 

The  result  of  these  changes — for  some  of  which  the 
■public  school  is  itself  responsible — is  the  great  and  nota- 
ble want  to  which  we  have  alluded,  viz.,  the  lack  of  suf- 
ficient knowledge,  or  of  the  right  kind  of  knowledge,  on 
the  part  of  boys  and  girls,  to  take  care  of  their  own  per- 
sons and  to  earn  their  own  living.  Girls  grow  up  with- 
out learning  to  sew,  and  multitudes  of  them  do  not  know 
how  to  mend  their  own  garments.  Boys  leave  the  public 
schools  without  fitness  for  any  calling  whatever,  except 
it  may  be  some  one  which  calls  into  requisition  that 
which  they  have  learned  of  writing  and  arithmetic. 
Some  sort  of  clerkship  is  what  they  try  for,  and  a  me- 
chanical trade  is  the  last  thing  that  enters  their  minds. 
.So  we  import  our  mechanics,  and  they  legislate  against 
the  Yankee  boy  in  all  their  trades  unions. 

The  pul)lic  hardly  needs  to  learn  that  the  result  of  the 
indisposition  and  inability  to  learn  trades  among  Ameri- 
can boys  is  about  as  disastrous  as  can  be  imagined.  It 
is  found  that  in  the  prisons,  almost  universally,  the 
number  of  criminals  who  never  learned  a  trade  to  those 
who  are  skilled  workmen  is  as  six  to  one.  The  army  of 
tramps  who  have  infested  the  country  for  the  last  few 
years  is  largely  composed  of  men  who  have  had  no  in- 
dustrial education  whatever.  These  men,  who  beg  at 
our  doors,  arc  mainly  men  who  never  learned  a  trade, 
and  who  can  handle  nothing  but  a  sho\cl.  A  New  York 
clergyman,  possessing  a  large  family  of  boys,  recently 
declared  from  his  pulpit  that  he  intended  that  every  lad 
of  his  family  should  learn  some  mechanical  employment. 


1 88  Every-Day   Topics. 

by  which,  in  an  emergency,  he  could  get  a  living.  He 
was  right.  It  is  in  the  emergencies  of  life — it  is  when 
men  find  themselves  helpless  and  without  the  power  of 
earning  money — that  they  slip  into  crime,  and  become 
the  tenants  of  prisons  and  penitentiaries. 

So  the  American  people  must,  sooner  or  later,  be 
driven  to  the  establishment  of  industrial  schools.  To 
learn  how  to  work  skilfully  with  the  hands  must  become 
a  part  of  common  education.  Rich  and  poor  alike 
should  be  taught  how  to  work,  for  it  is  quite  as  likely 
that  the  rich  will  become  poor  as  that  some  of  the  poor 
will  become  rich  ;  and  that  is,  and  always  must  be,  a 
poor  education  which  fails  to  prepare  a  man  to  take  care 
of  himself  and  his  dependents  in  life.  We  understand 
what  to  do  with  criminals.  We  confine  them  and  set 
them  to  learning  a  trade,  especially  the  young  criminals. 
The  reform  schools  never  leave  out  the  element  of  man- 
ual industry.  Why  is  it  not  just  as  legitimate  to  teach  the 
virtuous  how  to  take  care  of  themselves  without  crime  as 
it  is  the  vicious  ? 

Indeed,  there  is  no  place  where  men  can  learn  to  work 
so  well  as  in  schools,  where  they  can  be  taught  the  prin- 
ciples of  mechanics.  We  visited  a  shop  recently  where 
hoisting  apparatus  is  made — "  blocks"  or  "  tackle,"  as 
it  is  called — but  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  shop,  from 
the  master  down,  who  could  explain  the  principle  and 
power  of  the  pulley.  They  had  learned  their  business  of 
some  routine  mechanic  who  had  no  intelligence  in  the 
principles  of  his  art,  and  they  were  obliged  to  confess  to 
a  stranger  that  they  were  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  their 
work,  and,  consequently,  without  the  power  to  make 
any  improvement  in  it.  Now,  if  the  money  spent  in  edu- 
cation really  unfits  the  great  majority  for  the  work  of 
life,  or,  rather,  fails  to  fit  them  for  work,  why  should  we 
go  further  in  this  direction  ?  There  are  practical  difficul- 


Education  and  Industry.  189 

tics  in  plenty,  but  the  thing  has  already  been  success- 
fully tried  in  more  than  one  country,  and  this  is  an  inven- 
tive nation.  The  cost  is  the  real  difficulty — the  cost  and 
the  indifference  of  the  public  mind.  We  have  made  a 
sort  of  god  of  our  common  school  system.  It  is  treason 
to  speak  a  word  against  it.  A  man  is  regarded  as  a  foe 
to  education  who  expresses  any  doubt  of  the  value  of  it. 
But  we  may  as  well  open  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  in 
preparing  men  for  the  work  of  life,  especially  for  that 
work  depending  upon  manual  skill,  it  is  a  hindrance  and 
a  failure.  To  learn  to  make  a  painted  wagon  is  almost  to 
cover  the  field  of  the  mechanic  arts.  To  draw  a  wagon 
upon  paper  in  whole  and  in  working  parts,  to  build  and 
finish  the  wood-work,  to  forge  and  file  the  iron-work,  to 
go  through  all  the  joinery  of  one  and  the  welding  and 
adaptation  of  the  other,  to  smooth  and  paint  the  surface, 
is  to  achieve  a  preparation  for  almost  any  trade,  involv- 
ing construction  from  similar  materials.  It  is  not  so 
complicated  and  difficult  a  matter  as  one  would  at  first 
suppose.  We  have  agricultural  schools  of  a  high  grade, 
and  find  the  national  account  in  them,  but  we  need  a 
great  deal  more,  for  the  health  and  welfare  of  the  youth 
of  the  nation — an  industrial  school  in  every  ward  of 
every  city,  and  a  similar  school  in  every  village,  sup- 
ported at  the  public  expense.  « 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY. 

Life  in   Large  and  Small  Towns. 

IT  is  said,  by  those  who  have  good  opportunities  of 
judging,  that  fifty  thousand  strangers  spent  last  win- 
ter in  this  city.  Every  hotel  and  every  boarding-house 
was  full.  Of  these  fifty  thousand,  probably  more  than 
half  were  permanent  boarders  for  the  winter,  while  the 
remainder  were  merchants,  coming  and  going  on  errands 
of  business.  The  fact  shows  that  New  York  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  regarded  as  the  great  capital  of  the 
country,  and  is  beginning  to  hold  toward  the  country  the 
same  relation  that  London  holds  to  Great  Britain,  and 
Paris  to  France.  This  latter  fact  ineans  inore  than  win- 
ter boarding  :  it  means  that  New  York  is  coming  to  be 
regarded  as  a  desirable  home  for  all  who  have  money 
enough  made  to  enable  them  to  live  at  leisure.  The 
Ca^fornian  who  has  become  rich  has,  in  many  instances, 
brought  his  family  to  New  York,  and  bought  his  house 
on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  country  manufacturer  who  has 
grown  to  be  a  nabob  in  his  little  village,  domiciles  him- 
self on  Murray  Hill,  that  his  family  may  have  a  better 
chance  of  life  than  they  get  in  the  narrow  village. 

What  is  true  of  the  commercial  capital  of  the  country 
is  also  true,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  the  political. 
Washington  has  grown  to  be  a  beautiful  city  and  noth- 
ing has  more  directly  ministered  to  its  growth  than  the 
gathering  to  it  from  far  and  near  of  wealthy  and  culti- 


Toivn  and  Country.  19I 

vated  families,  who  have  sought  it  as  a  residence  and  a 
resort.  New  York,  the  commercial  capital,  and  Wash- 
ington, the  political,  will,  for  many  years,  divide  be- 
tween them  those  families  whom  wealth,  instead  of  bind- 
ing to  the  place  where  its  stores  were  acquired,  has  made 
migratory.  Those  who  wish  to  hear  the  best  operas  and 
witness  the  best  acting,  and  who  desire  to  be  where  the 
best  in  art  of  all  kinds  is  to  be  found,  and  especially 
those  whose  tastes  are  commercial,  will  come  to  New 
York  ;  while  those  who  are  fond  of  politics,  and  the  pe- 
culiar social  life  that  reigns  at  a  political  centre,  will  go 
to  Washington  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  say  which  will  have  the 
better  home.  Few  who  have  not  kept  themselves  famil- 
iar with  Washington  can  appreciate  the  long  strides 
she  has  made,  during  the  past  few  years,  in  population, 
and  in  all  desirable  conditions  as  a  residence.  Her  cli- 
mate, her  lovely  position,  her  possession  of  the  national 
Government,  the  residence  she  gives  to  the  high  officials 
of  the  nation  and  the  representatives  of  other  nations, 
conspire  to  make  her  one  of  the  most  attractive  cities  in 
America. 

But  we  do  not  undertake  to  represent  the  beauties  and 
attractions  of  the  two  cities.  They  do  not  secni  to  need 
our  help  ;  but  we  would  like  to  say  a  word  about  those 
conditions  of  life  in  small  towns  which  make  these 
changes  of  residence  desirable.  Interested  in  New 
York,  it  is  pleasant  for  us  to  see  it  prospering  and  grow- 
ing, but  our  interest  in  its  growth  docs  not  blind  us  to 
the  fact  that  it  ought  not  to  grow  because  life  within  it 
is  more  significant  and  fruitful  than  it  is  in  the  country. 
It  seems  to  us  a  great  mistake  for  a  man  to  leave  the 
region  where  he  makes  his  money  to  spend  it  and  his 
lite  in  another.  If  the  life  he  leaves  is  not  significant 
to  him,  it  is  quite  likely  to  he  his  fault  more  than  that  of 
anv  and  all  other  men.     For  he  has  had  the  monev  more 


192  Every- Day    Topics. 

than  others  to  enrich  the  character  of  the  Hfe  around 
him  ;  and  the  possesion  of  that  money  has  placed  upon 
him  tlie  burden  of  certain  duties  which  he  has  left  un- 
performed. Wealth  acquired  in  any  modest  locality 
belongs  there,  by  a  certain  right,  for  it  cannot  exist 
there  for  a  moment  without  assuming  certain  very  defi- 
nite relations  to  the  popular  needs  and  the  public  good. 
To  take  money  away  from  where  it  has  been  made  is  to 
impoverish  all  the  life  of  the  community.  It  reduces  its 
means  of  living  and  its  possibilities  of  progress.  It  not 
only  takes  bread  and  clothing  from  the  poor,  but  it  re- 
duces all  its  means  of  social  improvement. 

The  city  of  Cincinnati  has  recently  held  another  mu- 
sical festival,  and  won  to  herself  the  glory  of  surpassing 
New  York  and  Washington  in  musical  culture  and  the 
power  of  producing  great  musical  works.  It  cannot  be 
hard  to  see  that  the  life  of  Cincinnati  has  been  made  so 
significant  to  its  people  that  they  can  have  no  temptation, 
however  rich  they  may  be,  to  go  to  New  York  or  Wash- 
ington 10  live.  A  commercial  town  that  can  give  up  a 
week  to  music,  and  furnish  all  the  money  and  the  time 
necessary  to  produce  a  great  musical  triumph,  has  no 
call  to  go  elsewhere  to  find  a  more  interesting  life  than 
it  secures  at  home.  People  are  much  more  apt  to  go  to 
Cincinnati  to  live  than  to  go  away  from  there,  because  it 
is  an  honor  to  live  there,  and  to  be  associated  with  the 
generous  life  and  development  of  the  place. 

What  we  say  of  Cincinnati  illustrates  all  that  we  have 
to  say  about  the  smaller  towns  and  cities.  Men  of 
wealth  who  have  sense  enough  to  long  for  a  better  life 
than  they  can  find  in  their  little  city  or  village  are  to 
blame  for  not  making  the  life  around  them  as  good  as  they 
want  it  to  be.  There  is  not  a  city  or  a  village  in  America 
that  has  not  within  itself — in  its  men  and  women  and 
money — the  means   for  doing  some  good,  or  noble,  or 


Toivn  and  Country.  193 

interesting  thing,  that  shall  Uft  its  Hfe  above  the  common- 
place, and  hold  its  own  against  all  the  attractions  of 
metropolitan  life.  Where  a  man  makes  his  money  there 
he  should  make  his  home,  and,  as  a  rule,  it  will  be 
mainly  his  fault  and  that  of  his  family  if  he  cannot  spend 
his  life  there  with  profit  and  satisfaction. 

Village  Improvement  Societies. 

There  are  just  about  four  months  in  the  year  in  which 
an  ordinary  country  village  is  a  pleasant  place  to  dwell 
in,  viz.  :  from  May  to  September.  The  muddy  streets 
and  sidewalks  of  autumn  and  spring,  and  the  icy  and 
snowy  ways  of  winter,  render  it  uncomfortable  for  walk- 
ing or  driving.  The  foliage  and  herbage  of  summer 
cover  up  the  ugly  spots,  and  the  greenery  of  the  growing 
months  transforms  the  homeliest  details  into  the  pleas- 
ant and  picturesque.  The  moment  the  greenery  disap- 
pears, dilapidated  fences,  broken-down  sheds,  unkept 
commons,  neglected  trees,  and  all  the  tolerated  uglinesses 
of  the  village  assert  themselves.  The  village  is  beauti- 
ful no  longer.  There  are  thousands  of  villages  scattered 
over  the  country  in  which  there  has  never  been  a  public- 
spirited  attempt  made  to  reduce  their  disorder  to  order, 
their  ugliness  to  beauty,  their  discomforts  to  comfort. 
Every  man  takes  care,  or  does  not  take  care,  of  his  own. 
There  is  no  organic  or  sympathetic  unity,  and  the  vil ■■ 
higes,  instead  of  being  beautiful  wholes,  are  inharmo- 
nious aggregations.  Some  paint  and  some  do  not  paint. 
Some  keep  their  grounds  well,  and  others  do  not  keep 
their  grounds  at  all.  Unsightly  wrecks  of  vehicles,  of- 
fensive piles  of  rubbish,  are  exposed  here  and  there,  and 
every  man  apparently  feels  at  liberty  to  make  his  bc- 
k)n;^ings  as  unpleasant  to  his  neighbor  as  it  pleases 
him.  No  public  sentiment  of  order  is  developed  ;  no 
9 


194  Every-Duy   Topics. 

local  pride  is  fostered  ;  there  is  apparently  no  desire  for 
beauty  or  convenience  that  goes  one  step  beyond  one's 
home  in  any  case. 

It  is,  therefore,  with  great  gratification  that  we  notice 
here  and  there  the  organization  of  Village  Improvement 
Societies,  and  the  beautiful  work  which  they  are  accom- 
plishing. Wherever  they  have  been  in  existence  long 
enough  to  accomplish  anything,  shade  trees  are  planted 
by  the  side  of  the  highways  ;  old,  neglected  commons 
are  fenced  in,  graded  and  planted  ;  sidewalks  are  laid  in 
all  the  streets,  and  a  public  interesi  in  order  and  beauty 
is  developed,  which  makes  every  man  more  careful  of 
his  own.  Two  villages,  of  which  we  happen  to  know, 
have  been  quite  transformed  within  two  or  three  years 
by  the  operations  of  these  organizations  ;  and  their  be- 
neficent and  beautiful  work,  already  done,  will  insure  to 
their  localities  a  certain  amount  of  beauty  and  conven- 
ience for  the  next  hundred  years.  They  have  not  been 
met  by  tlic  public  apathy  that  they  anticipated,  and  they 
have  been  enabled,  by  subscriptions,  fairs  and  festivals, 
to  raise  sufficient  inoney  for  the  work  they  have  insti- 
tuted, wliile  individual  citizens  have  co-operated  with 
them  in  tlicir  schemes. 

There  is  no  good  reason  why  every  considerable  vil- 
lage of  the  country  should  not  be  made  convenient, 
healthful,  and  beautiful,  by  the  operations  of  such  socie- 
ties as  these.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  a  public 
feeling  of  pride  should  not  be  engendered  by  them,  and 
an  earnest  purpose  developed  to  make  each  village  more 
attractive  than  its  neighbor.  Selfish  interest  is  all  on 
the  side  of  the  societies  ;  for  improvement  in  beauty  and 
comfort  means  improvement  in  value.  Emulation  be- 
tween neighbors  and  between  villages  is  excited,  and 
niggardly  property-holders  are  shamed  into  efforts  to 
contribute  to  the  popular  desire  for  harmony.     This  is 


Town  and  Country.  195 

not  a  theory  ;  it  is  experience  ;  for,  wherever  they  have 
been  tried,  these  societies  have  done  the  work  and  exer- 
cised the  influence  we  have  stated. 

Again,  these  societies  are  agencies  of  culture.  De- 
veloping a  pubhc  spirit  and  a  feehng  of  local  pride,  they 
cannot  fail  to  bear  fruit  in  other  and  higher  directions. 
Public  and  domestic  architecture  will  be  the  first  to  feel 
the  effect  of  the  new  sentiment.  Men  will  build  pretty 
houses,  in  tone  with  the  new  order  of  things.  New  am- 
bition will  be  developed  with  relation  to  public  buildings 
and  their  surroundings.  The  new  town-hall  will  be  bet- 
ter than  the  old.  The  new  church  will  be  an  ornament 
and  a  glory,  which  the  old  one  was  not.  Lyceums, 
reading-clubs,  and  libraries,  arc  just  as  natural  an  out- 
growth of  a  public  spirit  engendered  by  these  societies, 
and  a  public  culture  nourished  by  them,  as  they  are, 
themselves,  the  outgrowth  of  a  public  necessity. 

There  is  really  nothing  more  sadly  wanted  in  the  vil- 
lage life  of  America,  than  the  organization  of  its  best 
materials  for  purposes  relating  to  the  common  good.  So 
many  people  must  always  spend  their  lives  in  villages  ; 
and  those  lives,  in  countless  instances,  are  so  barren 
and  meaningless,  so  devoid  of  interest,  so  little  sympa- 
thetic, that  any  means  which  promises  to  improve  that 
life,  should  secure  the  most  earnest  attention.  There  is 
no  reason  why  every  village  should  not  be  alive  with  in- 
terest in  its  own  culture  and  its  own  affairs,  or  why  vil- 
lage life  should  not  be  crowded  with  attractions  that 
have  the  power  to  hold  every  villager  to  his  home.  There 
are  multitudes  who  never  dream  that  their  village  can 
be  anything  more  to  them  than  a  place  of  shelter  and 
labor.  They  never  dream  that  a  village  can  be  the  cen- 
tre of  a  culture  as  sweet  and  delightful  as  any  city  pos- 
sesses, or,  that  they  have  any  duty  or  office  in  making  it  so. 

We  trust  that  the  work  of  making  the  villages  beauti- 


1 96  Every-Day    Topics. 

ful,  which  has  been  so  auspiciously  begun  by  the  socie- 
ties for  improvement,  will  be  extended  until  every  village 
in  the  land  will  have  its  Association,  and  experience  the 
natural  results.  It  is  a  work  in  which  men  and  women 
can  unite  and  in  which,  indeed,  women  may  lead  if  they 
will ;  for  none  are  more  interested  in  it,  and  what  comes 
of  it,  than  women.  Our  villages  are  built.  The  forma- 
tive stage  is  passed,  and  another  Centennial  ought  to 
find  every  American  village  the  home  of  order  and  com- 
fort, and  of  a  life  very  far  advanced  beyond  the  present 
in  social  culture  and  happiness. 

Village  Reform. 

So  great  was  the  interest  excited  all  over  the  country, 
last  year,  by  a  brief  article  in  this  department  on  "  Vil- 
lage Improvement  Societies,"  that  we  have  undertaken, 
by  the  best  means  within  reach,  to  satisfy  the  desire  for 
knowledge  upon  the  subject.  We  have  received  letters 
from  every  part  of  the  country  wishing  for  information — 
the  latest  from  the  interior  of  Texas.  Unhappily,  the 
thing  most  wanted  is  what  wc  know  least  about,  viz. : 
modes  of  organization  and  operation.  If,  in  those  New 
England  towns  that  now  have  societies  in  successful 
operation,  intelligent  reports  and  histories  could  be  pre- 
pared and  published,  they  v/ould  be  of  incalculable  bene- 
fit to  the  country.  What  the  beginners  want — literally 
by  thousands — is  to  know  just  how  to  do  it,  or  just 
how  somebody  else  has  done  it. 

The  articles  which  Colonel  Waring  has  written  for  this 
magazine,  and  which  are  now  in  course  of  publication, 
are  designed  as  helps — suggestions — inspirations.  So 
intelligent  and  practical  a  man  as  Colonel  Waring  can- 
not write  uninterestingly  upon  a  topic  so  harmonious 
with  his  tastes  and  pursuits  as  this.     The  farming  and 


Town  and  Country.  197 

village  populations  of  the  country  will  find  much  of  in- 
terest and  profit  in  his  papers.  His  views  of  the  desira- 
bleness of  farm  villages,  in  place  of  the  isolation  which 
makes  the  farm  so  hateful  to  the  young  and  so  barren  to 
the  old,  are  not  new  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  this 
department  of  the  magazine  ;  but  they  arc  very  impor- 
tant, and  will  need  to  be  published  many  times  again. 

There  are,  probably,  a  thousand  villages  in  this  coun- 
try that  will,  this  year,  form  village  improvement  socie- 
ties, moved  thereto  by  these  papers  and  by  the  article 
that  suggested  them  ;  and  the  fact  seems  to  us  one  of 
the  most  encouraging  and  delightful  in  the  social  and 
domestic  history  of  the  time.  The  local  organization  of 
taste,  the  building  up  of  local  rivalries  in  matters  of 
order  and  beauty,  the  doing  any  wise  thing  for  making 
attractive  the  smaller  centres  of  population — these  all 
are  so  intimately  connected  with  popular  development 
and  elevation  and  content,  that  they  might  well  engage 
the  work  of  social  missionaries  and  receive  the  money  of 
moribund  millionnaires. 

After  all,  the  thing  to  be  done  ought  not  to  be  difficult. 
Americans  are  usually  \'ery  much  at  home  in  matters  of 
organization.  The  wisest  heads  are  easily  got  together, 
and  when  they  really  are  the  wisest  heads,  they  easily 
work  together.  The  first  thing  wanted  is  wisdom  and 
taste.  The  second  on  the  list  is  money — all  of  it  that 
can  be  obtained,  because  there  is  always  use  for  more 
than  can  be  had.  Wilh  these  prerequisites  in  hand  or 
at  hand,  so  many  things  will  present  themselves  to  be 
clone  that  it  will  be  hard  to  determine  what  shall  have 
the  first  attention.  It  should  not  be  difficult  to  decide 
that  the  first  interests  to  be  consulted  are  those  of  health 
and  comfort.  If  there  are  any  nuisances — any  breeders 
of  disease — they  should  be  put  out  of  the  way  at  once. 
Tlicn  every  village  wants  Liood  sidewalks.      Most  Anieri' 


198  Every -Day   lopics. 

can  villages  are  quagmires  in  the  spring  and  autumn,  in 
which  a  man  can  never  walk  with  dry  feet  and  clean 
trowsers,  and  in  which  a  lady  cannot  walk  at  all.  Ex- 
actly at  this  point,  and  on  this  improvement,  is  where 
the  township  and  the  village  come  to  a  dead  halt.  The 
farmers  who  occupy  the  outlying  agricultural  acreage  of 
a  township  are  not  willing  to  pay  a  dollar  in  taxes  for  the 
improvement  of  the  village.  They  may  be  willing  to  do 
something  for  the  I'oad  ;  but  for  the  sidewalk,  nothing. 
On  the  sidewalk,  then,  will  come  the  first  expensive  work 
of  a  village  improvement  society.  To  gain  time,  tree- 
planting  should  go  alopg  with  this.  After  this  come 
parks,  fences,  fountains — no  end  of  things. 

The  operations  of  a  society  of  this  kind  will  secure  an 
indirect  result  of  good  aUiiost  commensurate  with  that 
which  is  direct.  It  becomes  an  educator,  an  inspiration, 
a  motive,  a  reproof,  an  example.  A  slatternly  door-yard, 
fronting  a  new  and  well-grac-cd  sidewalk,  is  a  discord 
that  will  probably  be  discovered  and  corrected  by  its 
owner.  Such  a  movement  calls  universal  attention  to  in- 
dividual defects,  and  inspires  a  common  pride.  Beyond 
this,  it  develops  a  catholic,  public  spirit.  On  the  im- 
provement of  the  village  all  can  unite,  and  in  this  very 
delightful  enterprise,  spreading  from  village  to  village 
imtil  it  becomes  national,  men  can  forget  that  they  are 
partisans,  either  in  politics  or  religion,  and  come  to- 
gether, as  neighbors  and  friends,  to  work  alike  for  theira- 
selves  and  one  another. 

Thin  Living  and  Thick  Dying. 

If  any  reader  of  this  article  will  take  General  Walker's 
Statistical  Atlas,  based  on  the  results  of  the  Ninth  Cen- 
sus, and  turn  to  the  page  which  represents  the  mortality 
from  consumption,  he  will  be  startled  to  see  that,  over 


Toiun  and  Country.  199 

an  immense  area  of  the  Northern  American  territory, 
one-fifth  of  all  the  deaths  that  occur  are  in  consequence 
of  this  fell  disease.  The  whole  of  Maine  and  New  Hamp- 
shire, the  most  of  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  and  Con- 
necticut, and  all  of  Northern  New  York,  show  that  two 
thousand,,  out  of  every  ten  thousand  who  die,  owe  their 
death  to  consumption  ;  while,  in  very  much  larger  areas 
about  the  great  lakes,  the  deaths  from  this  disease  range 
from  one  thousand  four  hundred  to  two  thousand  in  every 
ten  thousand.  If  Asiatic  cholera  were  to  claim  in  these 
unfortunate  regions,  in  a  single  year,  as  many  victims  as 
consumption  does,  it  would  be  regarded  as  a  terrible 
epidemic — perhaps,  as  an  awful  visitation  from  heaven. 
It  would  be  a  great  benefit  to  New  England  and  all  the 
regions  associated  with  her  in  this  sad  scourge,  to  know 
how  far  the  dangers  of  their  inhospitable  climate  can  be 
avoided  by  a  change  in  diet  and  regimen.  Our  own  opin- 
ion is  that  consumption  can  be  driven  from  New  Eng- 
land in  three  generations.  Let  us  try  to  get  at  some  of 
the  facts  in  her  case. 

The  first  fact  is  that  her  climate  is  very  severe.  In 
truth,  consumption  seems  to  be  inseparable  from  the 
New  England  climate,  and  to  be  associated  with  all  cli- 
mates that  resemble  her  own  in  the  northern  parts  of  the 
country.  Wherever  the  frost  comes  early  and  the  win- 
ters are  hard,  and  the  springs  are  slow,  there  consump- 
tion makes  its  home.  The  next  fact  in  the  case  is  that 
certain  ideas  in  regard  to  diet  and  regimen  have  pre- 
vailed in  New  England,  especially  among  rural  popula- 
lations,  which  ignore  these  facts  of  climate.  Where  so 
much  of  life's  fuel  is  required  to  keep  a  man  warm,  there 
has  never  been  enough  taken  in  to  repair  the  waste  of 
labor.  In  these  consumptive  districts,  we  have  had  a 
large  population  proverbially  and  notoriously  given  to 
hard  and  constant  toil,  and  as  proverbially  and  notori- 


200  Every-Day   Topics. 

ously  frugal  in  their  way  of  living.  Their  sleeping-rooms 
have  not  been  warmed  ;  it  has  been  considered  quite 
effeminate  to  dress  heavily,  and  almost  disgraceful  to 
favor  one's  self  in  the  matter  of  work.  In  short,  the 
people  have  not  eaten  enough  of  nourishing  food  ;  they 
have  not  dressed  warmly  enough  ;  they  have  slept  in 
temperatures  altogether  too  low,  and  lived  too  much  in 
their  unventilated  kitchens. 

A  man  does  not  need  to  be  old  to  remember  the  time 
when  all  New  England  was  infatuated  with  Sylvester 
Graham's  notions  concerning  food.  The  New  England 
colleges  were  hot-beds  of  consumption.  Many  of  their 
students  made  long  tramps  while  fasting  in  the  morning, 
and  came  back  to  breakfasts  that  were  suicidally  meagre. 
They  died  by  scores, — by  hundreds.  Graham  was  a 
man  of  brains,  but  he  was  a  man  of  mischievous  hob- 
bies ;  and  instead  of  helping  New  England,  as  he  most 
conscientiously  endeavored  to  do,  he  harmed  her  griev- 
ously. It  is  true  that  there  has  been  a  great  change  in 
the  popular  opinion,  but  this  has  not  yet  fully  pervaded 
the  rural  districts.  In  the  towns,  the  people  live  better  ; 
and  students  have  learned  that  they  must  cat,  and  eat 
well,  in  order  to  keep  themselves  in  health  and  to  be 
able  to  do  good  work. 

At  the  tables  of  how  many  farmers  and  mechanics,  we 
wonder,  is  the  buckwheat  breakfast  gone  into  disgrace  ? 
We  readily  recall  the  time  when  uncounted  multitudes 
of  families  broke  their  fast  of  twelve  hours  and  faced  the 
work  of  a  blustering  winter  day  with  nothing  but  greasy 
buckwheat  cakes  and  molasses  !  '  They  might  almost  as 
well  have  eaten  sawdust  ;  and  what  had  they  for  dinner  ? 
Boiled  salt-pork  and  potatoes,  and  for  supper  boiled  salt- 
pork  and  potatoes  again— cold,  and  made  palatable  with 
vinegar!  Ah,  we  forget  the  pie — the  everlasting  pie, 
with   its  sugary  centre  and  its  leathery  crust— the  one 


Town  and  Country.  20i 

titillation  of  the  palate  that  made  life  tolerable.  Good 
bread  and  butter  or  milk,  abundant  fruit,  beef  and  mut- 
ton, nutritious  puddings — all  these  things  have  been 
within  the  reach  of  the  people  of  New  England,  for  they 
have  always  been  the  thriftiest  people  in  the  world  ;  but 
they  have  cost  something,  and  they  have  not  really  been 
deemed  necessary.  The  people  have  not  realized  that 
what  they  regarded  as  luxuries  were  necessaries,  and 
that  the  food  upon  which  they  have  depended  for  protec- 
tion from  the  climate,  and  for  the  repair  of  the  wastes  of 
labor,  has  been  altogether  inadequate,  and  has  left  them 
with  impoverished  blood  and  tuberculous  lungs. 

For,  after  taking  into  account  all  the  influence  of 
heredity,  which  is  made  much  of  ir.  treating  of  the 
causes  of  phthisis,  insufficient  nourishment  is  responsi- 
ble alike,  in  most  instances,  for  the  deposit  of  tubercle 
and  the  inflammation  to  which  it  naturally  gives  rise. 
There  are  many  men,  who,  by  a  change  of  living,  ren- 
der the  tubercles  already  deposited  in  their  lungs  harm- 
less. Vitality  becomes  so  high  in  its  power  that  it 
dominates  these  evil  influences,  and  they  live  out  a 
fairly  long  life  with  enemies  in  their  lungs  that  are  ren- 
dered powerless  by  the  strength  of  the  fluid  that  fights 
them.  We  have  seen  consumption  cured  again  and 
again  by  the  simple  process  of  building  up  the  forces  of 
vitality  through  passive  exercise  in  the  open  air,  and  the 
supply  of  an  abundance  of  nutritious  food  ;  and  we  have 
no  doubt  that  it  can  be  prevented  in  most  instances  by 
the  same  means. 

No  human  body  can  long  endure  the  draught  made 
upon  it  by  a  cold  climate  and  by  constant  labor,  unless 
it  is  well  fed,  well  clothed,  and  well  housed.  Some- 
where deterioration  will  show  itself,  and  in  New  England, 
—  nay,  all  over  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain  it  is  the 
same,  where  the  people  are  worse  fed  than  here — the 
9-- 


202  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

poverty  of  blood  shows  itself  in  the  deposit  of  tubercu- 
lous matter  in  the  lungs.  There  should  be  by  this  time 
some  improvement  in  New  England,  in  consequence  of 
the  increased  intelligence  of  the  people  ;  but  so  long  as 
many  of  them  are  running  westward,  and  their  places 
are  taken  by  an  ignorant  foreign  population,  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  statistics  will  show  much  improvement  for 
a  great  many  years  to  come.  If  our  physicians  could 
only  be  paid  for  preventing  disease,  and  could  be  per- 
mitted to  prescribe  for  each  family  its  way  of  living, 
there  would  be  but  little  difficulty  in  routing  from  its 
stronghold  that  most  fatal  and  persistent  enemy  of  hu- 
man life,  which  we  call  consumption. 

From  Country  to  City. 

It  is  presumable  and  probable  that  there  arrives  in 
New  York  City  every  day  a  considerable  number  of  let- 
ters from  the  country,  making  inquiry  concerning  what 
it  is  possible  for  a  countryman  to  do  here  in  the  way  of 
business,  and  asking  advice  upon  the  question  of  his  re- 
moval to  the  city.  Every  citizen  of  New  York,  with 
country  associations,  is  appHed  to  for  information  and 
counsel  with  regard  to  such  a  "change  of  base,"  and 
the  matter  seems  worth  tlic  few  words  a  careful  and  can- 
did observer  may  have  to  say  about  it. 

It  is  well,  at  the  beginning,  to  look  at  the  reasons 
which  move  people  to  a  desire  to  make  the  change. 
The  first,  perhaps,  are  pecuniary  reasons.  A  man  living 
in  a  country  town  looks  about  liini,  and  can  discover  no 
means  for  making  money  in  a  large  way.  Everything 
seems  petty.  The  business  of  the  place  is  small,  and 
its  possibilities  of  development  seem  very  limited.  A 
few  rich  men  hold  everything  in  their  hands,  and  a  young 
man,  with  nothing  for  capital  but  his  youth  and  healtli 


Toivn  and  Country.  203 

and  hope  and  ability,  feels  cramped — feels,  in  fact,  that 
he  has  no  chance.  His  savings  must  be  small  and  slow, 
and  a  lifetime  is  necessary  to  lift  him  to  a  point  where 
monev  will  give  him  power.  It  seems  to  him  that  if  he 
could  get  into  the  midst  of  the  great  business  of  the 
world  he  could  find  his  chance  for  a  quicker  and  broader 
development  of  wealth  ;  and  in  this  connection,  or  with 
this  fancy,  he  writes  a  letter  to  his  city  acquaintance, 
asking  for  his  advice  upon  the  matter. 

Another  is  smitten  by  a  sense  of  the  dryness  and  pet- 
tiness of  the  social  life  he  is  surrounded  by  in  the  coun- 
try, and  the  small  opportunities  he  has  for  personal  sat- 
isfaction and  development.  To  be  able  to  live  among 
picture-galleries  and  in  the  vicinity  of  great,  open  libra- 
ries ;  to  have  the  finest  theatres  and  the  most  attractive 
concert-halls  at  one's  door  ;  to  be  where  the  best  minds 
reveal  themselves  in  pulpit  and  on  platform  in  public 
speech  ;  where  competent  masters  stand  ready  to  teach 
every  science  and  every  art ;  to  live  among  those  whose 
knowledge  of  the  world  is  a  source  of  constant  satisfac- 
tion and  culture  ;  to  be  at  the  very  fountain  head  of  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  politico-economical  influences 
that  sweep  over  the  country  ;  to  feel  the  stimulus  of 
competition  and  example,  and  to  live  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  vital  activity- — all  this  seems  such  a  con- 
trast to  the  pettiness  and  thinness  and  insignificance  of 
village  life,  that  the  young  man,  realizing  it,  sits  down 
and  writes  to  his  city  friend,  inquiring  what  chance  there 
would  be  in  the  city  for  him.  The  country  seems  small 
to  him  ;  the  city,  large.  He  feels  the  gossip  that  flutters 
about  his  ears  to  be  disgusting  and  degrading,  and  chafes 
under  the  1)ondage  imposed  by  his  neighbors  through  their 
surveillance  of,  and  criticism  upon,  all  his  actions.  He 
wants  more  liberty,  and  for  some  reasons  would  really 
like  to  Ijc  where  he  is  less  known  and  less  cared  for. 


204  Every-Day    Topics. 

There  is  still  another  class  of  country-people  who  long 
for  a  city  life,  and  whose  aspirations  and  dispositions 
are  very  much  less  definite  and  reasonable  than  those 
to  whom  we  have  alluded.  They  are  not  so  particular 
about  business  or  about  wealth,  nor  do  they  care  defi- 
nitely about  superior  social  privileges,  or  about  the  cul- 
ture more  readily  secured  in  the  city  than  in  the  coun- 
try. They  are  simply  gregarious.  They  like  a  crowd, 
even  if  they  have  to  live  in  "  a  mess."  They  are  so  fond 
of  living  in  a  multitude  that  they  are  willing  to  sacrifice 
many  comforts  to  do  it.  Once  in  the  city,  no  poverty 
will  induce  them  to  leave  it.  They  have  no  interest  in 
life  outside  of  the  city.  These  usually  get  to  the  city  in 
some  way  without  writing  letters  of  inquiry. 

Now,  it  has  probably  surprised  most  inquirers  to  re- 
ceive uniformly  discouraging  answers  to  their  questions. 
For,  indeed,  no  man  knows  the  trials  of  city  life  but 
those  who  have  left  quiet  homes  in  the  country  and  tried 
it.  The  great  trial  that  every  man  from  the  country  ex- 
periences on  coming  to  the  city,  even  supposing  he  has 
found  employment  or  gone  into  business,  relates  to  his 
home.  His  thousand  dollars  a  year,  which  in  the  coun- 
try would  give  him  a  snug  little  house  and  comfortable 
provision,  would  get  him  in  the  city  only  a  small  room 
in  a  boarding-house.  The  two  thousand  dollars  that 
would  give  him  something  more  than  a  comfortable 
home  in  the  country,  would  give  him  in  the  city  only  a 
better  boarding-house.  The  three  thousand  that  would 
give  him  in  the  country  a  fair  establishment,  with  horses 
for  his  convenience  and  amusement,  would  in  the  city 
only  give  him  a  small  "flat"  in  a  crowded  apartment- 
house  ;  and  the  five  thousand  in  the  country  that  would 
give  him  the  surroundings  of  a  nabob,  would  only  pay 
the  rent  of  a  house  on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  country  rich 
man  can  live  splendidly  on  from   five  to  ten  thousand 


Town  and  Country.  205 

dollars  a  year,  while  the  city  rich  man  spends  from 
twenty  thousand  to  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  City 
incomes  look  large,  but  relatively  to  city  expenses  they 
are  no  larger  than  the  country  incomes.  The  man  who 
lives  in  the  city  has  experienced  the  remediless  drain 
upon  his  purse  of  the  life  which  he  lives,  and  feels  that 
the  risk  which  a  business  man  runs  of  coming  into  un- 
known circumstances  is  very  great.  He  feels  that,  unless 
his  country  friend  knows  just  how  he  is  going  to  meet 
that  drain,  he  will  be  safer  where  he  is.  City  life  is 
naturally  merciless.  It  has  to  take  care  of  itself,  and 
has  all  it  can  do  to  meet  its  own  wants.  If  a  man  from 
the  country  comes  into  it,  and  fails,  he  must  go  to  the 
wall.  Friends  cannot  save  him.  A  city  looks  coolly 
upon  a  catastrophe  of  this  kind,  for  it  is  an  every-day 
affair,  and  the  victim  knows  perfectly  well  that  he  can 
neither  help  himself  nor  get  anybody  else  to  help  him. 
So  the  city  friend,  knowing  the  risks  and  the  needs  of 
city  life,  dreads  to  see  any  country  friend  undertake 
them.  Then,  too,  the  faithful  records  of  city  life  show 
that  the  chances  are  largely  against  financial  success  in  it. 
The  man  of  society  who  is  attracted  from  the  country 
to  the  city  usually  fails  to  calculate  his  own  insignificance 
when  he  encounters  numljers.  The  man  of  social  con- 
sideration in  the  country  needs  only  to  go  to  the  city  to 
find  so  many  heads  above  his  own  that  he  is  counted  of 
no  value  whatever.  "Who  is  he?"  "What  is  he?" 
and  "  What  has  he  done?"  are  questions  that  need  to 
be  satisfactorily  answered  before  he  will  be  accepted, 
and  even  llien  he  will  need  to  become  a  positive  force 
of  some  sort  in  society  to  maintain  his  position.  City 
society  is  full  of  bright  and  ])ositi\'C  men  and  women, 
and  the  nian  and  woman  from  tlie  country  bring  none  of 
their  oUl  neighborhood  prestige  with  them  to  help  them 
throuirh. 


2o6  Every -Day   Topics. 

To  sum  up  what  the  city  man  really  feels  in  regard  to 
the  coming  of  his  country  acquaintances  to  the  city,  it 
would  be  not  far  from  this — viz. : 

1st.  The  chances  for  wealth  are  as  great,  practically, 
in  the  country  as  in  the  city,  and  the  expenses  of  living 
and  the  risks  of  disaster  much  less. 

2d.  The  competitions  of  city  life  and  the  struggles  to 
get  hold  of  business  and  salaried  work  are  fearful.  No 
man  should  come  to  the  city  unless  he  knows  what  he  is 
going  to  do,  or  has  money  enough  in  his  hands  to  take 
care  of  himself  until  he  gets  a  living  position  or  becomes 
satisfied  that  he  cannot  get  one.  Even  to-day,  with  the 
evidences  of  renewed  prosperity  all  around  us,  there  are 
probably  ten  applications  on  file  for  every  desirable 
place,  and  no  man  living  here  could  help  a  friend  to  a 
place  vinless  he  could  create  one. 

3d.  That  the  social  privileges  of  the  city  may  be 
greater  while  the  opportunities  of  social  distinction  and 
the  probabilities  of  social  consideration  are  much  less 
than  they  are  in  the  country. 

4th.  That  in  many  respects  there  is  nothing  in  the 
city  that  can  compensate  for  the  pure  pleasures  of  coun- 
try scenery  and  country  life  and  neighborhood  associa- 
tions. 

5th.  That  a  city  man's  dream  of  the  future,  particu- 
larly if  he  ever  lived  in  the  country,  is  always  of  the 
country  and  the  soil.  He  longs  to  leave  the  noise  and 
fight  all  behind  him,  and  go  back  to  his  country  home  to 
enjoy  the  money  he  may  have  won. 


ABOUT   WOMAN. 

Woman  and  Her  Work. 

WE  often  hear  it  said  that  there  are  many  men  en- 
gaged in  work  that  women  could  do  as  well,  and 
that  women  ought  to  be  in  their  places.  If  we  go  into 
Stewart's  store,  we  shall  see  quite  an  army  of  young  men 
engaged  in  tlie  sale  of  articles  that  call  for  little  exercise  of 
muscle  in  the  handling— articles  which  women  are  quite 
competent  to  handle  and  to  sell — and  it  is  common  to 
hear  the  remark  that  these  men  ought  to  be  engaged  in 
some  muscular  pursuit,  and  that  women  ought  to  do 
their  present  work.  But  do  we  remember  how  many 
hours  a  day  these  men  are  obliged  to  be  on  their  feel  ? 
Do  we  remember  how  impossible  it  is  for  women  to 
stand  all  day  without  serious  damage  to  themselves, 
especially  if  they  be  young  and  in  the  formative  period 
of  their  lives  ?  Woman  is  endowed  with  a  constitution 
and  charged  with  a  function  which  make  it  quite  impos- 
sible for  her  to  do  certain  classes  of  work  for  whicli  her 
mind  and  her  hands,  if  we  consider  them  alone,  are  en- 
tirely sufficient.  Not  impossible,  perhaps,  for  she  un- 
douljtedly  does  much  that  inthcts  infinite  damage  upon 
her,  and  those  that  are  born  of  her. 

The  effects  upon  woman  and  upon  the  race,  through 
her,  of  female  employment  constitute  a  great  subject, 
wliieh  cannot  be  competently  treated  in  an  editorial,  but 


2o8  Every-Day    Topics. 

we  can  at  least  call  the  attention  of  employers  to  the 
needs  of  women  engaged  in  doing  their  work.  All  em- 
ployments involving  long  periods  of  standing  upon  the 
feet  are  bad  for  women,  and  this  all  intelligent  employ- 
ers, if  they  are  humane  as  well,  will  remember.  No 
woman  should  be  obliged  to  stand  all  day.  Women  who 
set  type,  and  stand  while  doing  it,  like  men,  invariably 
acquire  physical  ills  that  at  last  become  unbearable. 
Factory  work  which  involves  long  periods  of  standing 
upon  the  feet  is  ruinous  to  health.  Employers  should 
remember  that  the  girls  engaged  in  their  service  must 
have  periods  of  rest,  in  a  sitting  position,  or  wear  them- 
selves out,  or  make  themselves  unfit  for  the  duties  and 
functions  of  women.  Even  constrained  positions  while 
sitting,  with  no  liberty  of  movement  upon  the  feet,  are 
bad  for  women.  The  restraints  that  are  often  put  upon 
them  in  great  establishments,  with  regard  to  their  atten- 
tion to  matters  that  call  for  privacy,  are  terrible  foes  to 
health.  To  compel  a  woman  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  a 
great  company  of  men  to  reach  the  seclusions  necessary 
to  her  is  a  brutal  cruelty,  for  which  any  employer  ought 
to  be  ashamed,  and  legally  punished. 

It  has  been  a  dream  of  certain  men  and  women  whom 
we  know,  that  women  need  only  to  be  developed  through 
a  number  of  generations  to  enable  them  to  engage  in  a 
large  variety  of  employments  now  exclusively  pursued 
by  men.  They  have  almost  quarrelled  with  those  disa- 
bilities that  now  attach  to  the  sex.  They  have  quite 
cjuarrelled  with  those  who  insist  that  those  disabilities  in- 
here in  the  nature  of  woman,  and  can  never  be  removed. 
There  are  those  who  say  that  woman  has  a  right  to  do 
anything  she  can  do.  There  are  women  who  insist  on 
this  right.  This  goes  without  saying,  of  course,  provided 
they  will  qualify  the  claim  a  little. 

A  woman  has  a  right  to  do  everything  she  can  do,  pro- 


About    Woman.  209 

vided  she  does  nothing  which  will  unfit  her  for  bearing 
and  raising  healthy  children.  The  future  of  the  nation 
and  the  race  depends  upon  the  mothers,  and  any  woman 
who  consents  to  become  a  mother  has  no  moral  right  to 
engage  in  any  employment  which  will  unfit  her  for  that 
function.  We  speak,  of  course,  of  women  whose  circum- 
stances give  them  the  control  of  themselves.  It  is  piti- 
ful to  think  that  there  are  multitudes  who  have  no  choice 
between  employments  that  unfit  them  for  motherhood 
and  want.  It  is  pitiful  to  think  that  there  arc  mothers 
who  live  their  whole  married  lives  in  conditions  which 
utterly  unfit  them  for  the  functions  and  responsibilities 
of  maternity. 

We  have  a  theory,  which,  we  regret  to  say,  is  not  only 
unpopular  among  a  certain  class  of  women,  but  exceed- 
ingly offensive  to  them,  viz.,  that  every  one  of  them 
ought  to  be  the  mistress  of  a  home.  Women  have  a 
fashion  in  these  days  of  rebelling  against  the  idea  that 
marriage  is  the  great  end  of  a  woman's  life.  They  claim 
the  right  to  mark  out  for  themselves  and  achieve  an  in- 
dependent career.  We  appreciate  the  delicacies  of  their 
position,  and  we  bow  to  their  choice  and  their  rights  ; 
nevertheless,  we  believe  that  in  the  millennium  women 
will  all  live  in  their  homes,  and  that  men  will  not  only 
do  that  which  is  now  regarded  as  their  own  peculiar 
work,  but  much  of  that  which  is  now  done  by  women. 
There  has  been  in  these  late  years  a  great  widening  out 
of  the  field  of  women's  employments.  We  have  been 
inclined  to  rejoice  in  this  "  for  the  present  necessity," 
but  we  are  sure  the  better  time  is  to  come  when  man,  the 
real  worker  of  the  world,  will  do  the  work  of  the  world,  or 
all  of  it  that  is  done  outside  of  home,  and  that  woman 
will,  as  wife  and  daughter  and  domestic,  hold  to  the  house 
and  to  that  variety  of  employments  which  will  best  con- 
serve her  health  and  fit  her  for  the  duties  and  de!i''hts  of 


2IO  Every- Day    Topics. 

wifehood  and  the  functions  of  motherhood.  Quarrel 
with  the  fact  as  she  may,  woman's  rights  must  all  and  al- 
ways be  conditioned  on  her  relations  to  the  future  of  hu- 
manity. She  has  no  right,  as  a  woman,  to  do  anything 
that  will  unfit  her  to  be  a  mother.  She  may  be  com- 
pelled to  do  some  things  for  bread  that  will  militate 
against  her  in  this  particular;  but  this  will  be  pitiful, 
and  the  legitimate  subject  of  all  the  ameliorating  influ- 
ences that  practical  humanity  can  command. 

We  understand,  appreciate,  and  respect  that  pride  of 
independence  which  moves  women  to  desire  to  achieve 
the  advantage  of  self-support,  as  a  release  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  marriage.  We  give  assent  to  her  demand  for 
the  privilege  to  develop  herself  in  her  own  way,  and  to 
do  those  things  to  which  she  finds  her  powers  adapted  ; 
but  we  must  exceedingly  lament  that  degree  of  indepen- 
dence, and  even  that  love  of  it,  which  interfere  with  mar- 
riage. Anything  which  renders  the  sexes  less  necessary 
to  each  other,  or  renders  them  less  desirable  to  each 
other,  is  much  to  be  deprecated.  Now,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  some  of  the  pursuits  which  have  been  adopted 
by  women  in  these  latter  days  of  freedom  unfit  them  in 
many  ways  for  wifehood  and  for  maternity.  There  is, 
perhaps,  no  better  test  for  the  propriety  and  desirable- 
ness of  a  woman's  calling  than  the  marriage  test.  A 
woman  can  say,  if  she  chooses  ;  "  I  will  not  marry.  I 
prefer  the  life  of  a  maiden.  I  will  take  the  liberty  it 
gives  me,  and  live  the  life  that  seems  best  to  me,  and 
cut  myself  forever  loose  from  all  responsibility  for  the 
future  of  my  race."  We  say  she  can  say  this,  if  she 
chooses,  and  then  settle  the  matter  with  Him  who  made 
her  a  woman  ;  but  if  she  holds  her  heart  open  to  men, 
and  considers  herself  a  candidate  for  love  and  marriage, 
she  has  no  moral  right  to  touch  any  employment  that 
will  detract  from   her   modest  maiden   delicacy,  or   that 


About    Woman.  2 1 1 

will  in  any  degree  unfit  her  for  domestic  life  and  all  the 
responsibilities  that  go  with  marriage.  Further  than 
this,  she  positively  owes  it  to  the  world,  to  herself,  and 
to  the  possible  husband  and  children  of  her  future,  to 
seek  for  that  kind  of  employment  and  that  variety  of 
culture  which  will  fit  her  for  marriage  and  maternity.  If 
public  or  professional  life  furnishes  this  employment  and 
culture,  they  will  be  legitimate  for  her,  and  not  other- 
wise ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  all  the  employments 
of  men  to  which  women  may  be  attracted.  Alas  !  that 
there  should  be  so  many  whom  circumstances  make 
impotent  for  any  choice  in  the  matter  of  their  lives  and 
destinies ! 

Men  and  Women, 

Among  all  the  burdens  that  woman  is  called  upon  to 
bear,  there  is  none  that  can  be  made  so  galling  to  her 
as  the  burden  of  dependence.  Man  is  usually,  in  the 
life  of  the  family,  the  bread-winner.  However  much  he 
may  be  helped  by  woman  in  the  economies  of  home  life, 
he  is  usually  the  one  who  earns  and  carries  the  money 
on  which  the  family  subsists.  Whatever  money  the 
woman  wants  comes  to  her  from  his  hands,  as  a  rule. 
Now,  this  money  can  be  given  into  her  hands  in  such  a 
way  that  she  cannot  only  preserve  her  sclf-rcspcct,  but 
rejoice  in  her  dependence  ;  or  it  can  be  given  to  her  in 
such  a  way  that  she  will  feel  like  a  dog  when  she  asks  for 
it  and  when  she  receives  it — in  such  a  way  that  she  will 
curse  her  dependence,  and  mourn  over  all  the  shame  and 
humiliation  it  brings  to  her.  We  are  sorry  to  believe  that 
there  are  multitudes  of  wives  and  daughters  and  sisters, 
who  wear  fine  clothing  and  who  fare  sumptuously  every 
day,  who  would  prefer  to  earn  the  money  they  spend  to 
receiving  it  frdui  the  ungracious  and  inconsiderate  hands 
upon  which  they  depend. 


212  Every -Day   Topics. 

If  we  had  entitled  this  article  "  A  Study  of  Husbands," 
it  would  have  led  us  more  directly,  perhaps,  to  our  main 
purpose ;  but  the  truth  is  that  what  we  have  to  say  has 
to  do  with  dependent  women  in  all  the  relations  of  life. 
It  is  natural  for  woman,  as  it  is  for  man,  to  desire  to 
spend  money  in  her  own  way — to  be  free  to  choose,  and 
free  to  economize,  and  free  to  spend  whatever  may  be 
spent  upon  herself  or  her  wardrobe.  It  is  a  delightful 
privilege  to  be  free,  and  to  have  one's  will  with  whatever 
expenditures  may  be  made  for  one's  own  conveniences 
or  necessities.  A  man  who  will  interfere  with  this  free- 
dom, and  who  will  deny  this  privilege  to  those  who  de- 
pend upon  him,  is  either  thoughtless  or  brutal.  We 
know — and  women  all  know — men  who  are  very  gener- 
ous toward  their  dependents,  but  who  insist  on  reserv- 
ing to  themselves  the  pleasure  of  purchasing  whatever 
the  women  of  their  households  may  want,  and  then 
handing  it  over  to  them  in  the  form  of  presents.  The 
women  are  loaded  with  nice  dresses  and  jewelry,  and 
these  are  bestowed  in  the  same  way  in  which  a  Turk 
lavishes  his  favors  upon  the  slaves  of  his  harem.  Now, 
it  is  undoubtedly  very  gratifying  to  these  men  to  exer- 
cise their  taste  upon  the  necessities  and  fineries  of  their 
dependent  women,  and  to  feast  themselves  upon  the 
surprises  and  the  thanks  of  those  receiving  their  favors  ; 
but  it  is  a  superlatively  selfish  performance.  If  these 
women  could  only  have  had  in  their  hands  the  money 
which  these  gifts  cost,  they  would  have  spent  it  better, 
and  they  would  have  gratified  their  own  tastes.  A  man 
may  be  generous  enough  to  give  to  a  woman  the  dresses 
and  ornaments  she  wears,  who  is  very  far  from  being 
generous  enough  to  give  her  money,  that  she  may  freely 
purchase  what  she  wants,  and  have  the  great  delight  of 
choosing. 

This  is  one  side — not  a  very  repulsive  one — of  man's 


About    Woman.  213 

selfishness  in  his  dealings  with  women  ;  but  there  is  an- 
other side  that  is  disgusting  to  contemplate.  There  are 
great  multitudes  of  faithful  wives,  obedient  daughters, 
and  "left  over"  sisters,  to  whom  there  is  never  given  a 
willing  penny.  The  brute  who  occupies  the  head  of  the 
family  never  gives  a  dollar  to  the  women  dependent 
upon  him  without  making  them  feel  the  yoke  of  their 
dependence,  and  tempting  them  to  curse  their  lot,  with 
all  its  terrible  humiliations.  Heaven  pity  the  poor 
women  who  may  be  dependent  upon  him — women  who 
never  ask  him  for  money  when  they  can  avoid  it,  and 
never  get  it  until  they  have  been  made  to  feel  as  meanly 
humble  as  if  they  had  robbed  a  hen-roost ! 

There  is  but  one  manly  way  in  treating  this  relation 
of  dependent  women.  If  a  man  recognizes  a  woman  as 
a  dependent, — and  he  must  do  so,  so  far,  at  least,  as  his 
wife  and  daughters  are  concerned, — he  acknowledges 
certain  duties  which  he  owes  to  them.  His  duty  is  to 
support  them,  and,  so  far  as  he  can  do  it,  to  make  them 
happy.  He  certainly  cannot  make  them  happy  if,  in  all 
his  treatment  of  them,  he  reminds  them  of  their  depen- 
dence upon  him.  We  know  of  no  better  form  into 
which  he  can  put  the  recognition  of  his  duty  than  that 
of  an  allowance,  freely  and  promptly  paid  whenever  it 
may  be  called  for.  If  a  man  acknowledges  to  himself 
that  he  owes  the  duty  of  support  to  the  women  variously 
related  to  him  in  his  household,  let  him  generously  de- 
termine how  much  money  he  has  to  spend  upon  each, 
and  tell  her  just  how  much  she  is  at  liberty  to  call  upon 
him  {or,  fie  r  an  fill  tn.  Then  it  stands  in  the  relation  of  a 
debt  to  the  woman,  which  she  is  at  liberty  to  call  for 
and  to  spend  according  to  her  own  judgment.  We  have 
watched  the  working  of  this  plan,  and  it  works  well. 
We  have  watched  the  working  of  other  plans,  and  ihcy 
do  not  work  well.     We  have  watched,  for  instance,  the 


214  Every -Day   Topics. 

working  of  the  plan  of  the  generous  husband  and  father, 
who  says  :  "  Come  to  me  for  what  you  want  whenever 
you  want  it.  I  don't  wish  to  Umit  you.  Some  years 
you  will  want  more,  and  some  less."  This  seems  very 
generous  ;  but,  in  truth,  these  women  prefer  to  know 
about  what  the  man  thinks  they  ought  to  spend,  or 
about  what  he  regards  as  the  amount  he  can  afford  to 
have  them  spend.  Having  gained  this  knowledge  by  a 
voluntarily  proffered  allowance,  they  immediately  adapt 
their  expenditures  to  their  means,  and  are  perfectly  con- 
tent. It  is  a  comfort  to  a  dependent  woman  to  look 
upon  a  definite  sum  as  her  own — as  one  that  has  been 
set  aside  for  her  exclusive  use  and  behoof. 

A  great  multitude  of  the  discomforts  that  attach  to  a 
dependent  woman's  lot  arise  from  the  obtuseness  and 
thoughtlessness  of  the  men  upon  whom  they  depend. 
There  are  some  men  so  coarsely  made  that  they  cannot 
appreciate  a  woman's  sensitiveness  in  asking  for  money. 
They  honestly  intend  to  do  their  duty — even  to  deal 
generously — by  the  women  dependent  upon  them  ;  but 
they  cannot  understand  why  a  woman  should  object  to 
come  to  them  for  what  they  choose  to  give  her.  If 
they  will  ask  their  wives  to  tell  them  frankly  how  they 
can  improve  their  position,  these  wives  will  answer  that 
they  can  do  it  by  putting  into  their  hands,  or  placing 
within  their  call,  all  the  money  per  annum  which  they 
think  they  can  afford  to  allow  them,  and  not  to  compel 
them  to  appeal  to  their  husbands  as  suppliants  for 
money  whenever  they  may  need  a  dollar  or  the  quarter 
of  one. 

The  absolutely  brutal  husband  and  father  will  hardly 
read  this  article,  but  we  recall  instances  of  cruelty  and 
insult  toward  dependent  women  that  would  make  any 
true  man  indignant  in  every  fibre.  A  true  woman  may 
legitimately  rejoice  in  her  dependence  upon  a  true  man. 


About    Woman.  2 1 5 

because  he  will  never  make  her  feel  it  in  any  way  ;  but 
a  brute  of  a  husband  can  make  a  true  woman  feel  her 
humiliation  as  a  dependent  a  hundred  times  a  day,  until 
her  dependence  is  mourned  over  as  an  unmitigated 
curse. 

Woman's  Winter  Amusements. 

We  have  many  reasons,  in  the  direct  testimonials  that 
have  come  to  us,  for  believing  that  an  article  which  we 
published  in  this  department  a  year  or  two  since,  on 
"  Winter  Amusements,"  was  remarkably  suggestive  and 
stimulating  in  the  establishment  of  clubs  for  culture  and 
recreation.  We  spoke  specially  of  reading  clubs,  "  Shak- 
spere  clubs,"  etc.  The  project  was  entered  upon  in  a 
great  many  towns  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land,  and  great  good  has  come  of  it.  To  open  a 
still  wider  field  of  intellectual  recreation  and  instruction 
is  the  object  of  this  article. 

In  a  certain  country  town,  which  we  need  not  name, 
there  was  established  last  year  a  "  Rome  Club."  A 
considerable  number  of  intelligent  ladies,  moved  thereto 
by  the  existence  of  a  literary  club  among  their  husbands 
and  brothers,  gathered  together  and  formed  a  club 
among  themselves  for  the  study  of  historical  cities. 
Rome  was  chosen  as  the  first  city  to  be  investigated — 
its  pagan  history,  its  Christian  history,  its  art  in  various 
departments,  its  relations  to  the  world  at  various  epochs, 
etc.,  etc.  Subdivisions  of  the  larger  topics  were  made, 
and  each  woman  was  given  a  branch  to  study,  with  the 
duty  to  write  out  her  conclusions  and  results,  and  to 
read  them  at  the  weekly  meetings  of  the  club.  It  is 
declared  to  us  by  one  who  watched  the  developments  of 
the  enterprise  that,  as  the  result  of  that  winter's  most 
interesting  work,  this  town  contains  the  largest  number 
of  women  who   know  everything  about  Rome  than  any 


21 5  Every- Day    Topics. 

town  in  the  United  States  can  boast.  Every  available 
library  was  ransacked  for  material,  books  were  over- 
hauled that  were  black  with  the  undisturbed  dust  of  a 
century,  knowledge  was  organized,  put  into  form,  and 
communicated  ;  and  when  the  winter  closed,  the  women 
found  not  only  that  they  had  been  immensely  interested, 
but  that  their  field  of  knowledge  had  been  very  much 
enlarged. 

This  year,  this  same  club  will  take  up  another  city. 
Whether  it  will  be  London,  or  Paris,  or  Jerusalem,  or 
Athens,  or  Venice,  we  do  not  know,  and  it  does  not 
matter.  But  what  a  mine  of  interest  and  instruction 
lies  before  them  in  any  of  these !  How  very  small  do 
the  ordinary  amusements  of  a  town  look  by  the  side  of 
the  employments  of  such  a  club  as  this  !  What  a  cure 
for  gossip  and  neighborhood  twaddle  is  contained  in 
such  a  club !  What  an  enlargement  of  the  sphere  of 
thought  comes  of  such  amusements  and  employments  ! 
How  the  whole  world,  through  all  its  ages  and  among 
all  its  scenes  and  peoples,  becomes  illuminated  with  a 
marvellous  human  interest,  to  women  who  study  it  to- 
gether, and  with  a  certain  degree  of  competition,  in  this 
way  ! 

Well,  a  club  for  the  study  of  the  great  historical  cities 
can  be  formed  anywhere,  and  there  ought  to  be  a  thou- 
sand of  them  formed  this  winter.  Wherever  there  may 
be  women  who  find  life  something  of  a  bore,  when  follow- 
ed in  the  ordinary  way,  wherever  there  may  be  women 
who  have  leisure  that  hangs  heavily  upon  their  hands, 
or  a  round  of  tasteless  courtesies  to  go  through  with, 
wherever  there  may  be  women  whose  minds  are  starving 
while  they  execute  the  routine  of  housekeeping  duties, 
there  will  be  found  the  materials  for  such  a  club  as  this. 
They  would  be  better  daughters,  wives  and  mothers,  for 
the  culture  that  would  be  won  by  such  a  club,  and  be 


About   Woman.  217 

saved  the  everlasting  yearning  for  an  impossible  career 
that  seems  to  be  moving  so  many  women's  souls  at  the 
present  time.  Life  is  good  and  duty  is  good,  if  we  only 
give  iheni  flavor.  Porridge  without  salt  may  be  nutri- 
tious, but  it  is  not  palatable.  The  great  want  of  the 
clever  women  we  are  rearing  in  such  numbers,  is  not  so 
much  a  public  career  as  a  palatable  private  one.  A 
round  of  humdrum  household  duties,  or  around  of  fash- 
ionable courtesies  within  the  rigid  rules  of  etiquette, 
becomes  tasteless  to  any  woman.  What  better  can  she 
do  for  profit  or  for  pleasure  than  to  season  her  life  with 
society  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  ? 

Of  course,  enterprises  of  this  kind  are  not  necessa- 
rily confined  to  the  study  of  cities.  Countries  may  be 
studied  with  the  same  advantage — perhaps  even  with 
greater  advantage.  A  special  topic  may  be  taken  up. 
At  this  time  much  is  written  upon  art.  It  is  practically 
a  new  topic  in  this  country.  We,  as  a  nation,  are  now 
making  our  beginnings  in  art.  The  greatest  sculptors  and 
painters  America  has  produced  are  living  men  to-day. 
Art  has  no  history  here.  Art,  historically,  then — art  in  its 
relations  to  civilization — art  in  its  influence  upon  personal 
character — art  as  an  outgrowth  of  life  and  a  power  upon 
life — furnishes  a  subject  that  may  well  interest  a  group 
of  women  for  a  winter,  not  only,  but  for  many  winters. 
Wo  know  of  girls  who  are  as  much  interested  in  works 
of  political  economy  as  if  they  were  novels.  We  can 
hardly  imagine  anything  more  interesting  to  a  club  of 
bright  girls  who  have  left  school,  than  a  winter  in  politi- 
cal economy.  The  subject  may  be  pursued,  simply  as 
a  matter  of  social  reading  and  discussion  ;  or  each  may 
be  charged  with  gathering  the  distinguishing  views  of 
given  writers,  and  presenting  them  in  brief. 

The  great  point  is  to  get  together,  and  to  become  in- 
terested together  in  some  region  of  knowledge,  or  art,  or 


2 1 8  Every -Day    Topics. 

exalted  human  concern.  Life  with  men  is  active,  excit- 
ing, exhausting.  The  club  life  of  men  is  very  rarely 
intellectual,  and  very  rarely  in  any  way  elevating.  Much 
of  it  debases  and  curses,  with  its  eating  and  drinking, 
and  its  selfish  separation  from  the  family  life.  A  wom- 
an's club  should  always  be  an  addition  to  the  family 
life,  and  so  transform  a  home  into  a  temple.  There  are 
many  women  in  the  world  who  wish  they  were  men. 
There  is  not  one  man  who  wishes  he  were  a  woman.  The 
simple  reason  is  that  woman  has  not  yet  learned  how  to 
give  flavor  to  her  life.  We  do  not  believe  that  God  has 
made  the  lot  of  the  sexes  unequal.  When  woman  shall 
make  the  most  and  best  of  her  life,  she  will  spend  no 
time  in  wishing  for  a  coarser  nature  and  a  rougher  lot 
than  her  own.  Let  her  avail  herself  of  the  means  at  her 
hand  for  making  her  life  interesting,  and  the  work  will 
be  done.  That  she  may  conquer  the  realm  that  legiti- 
mately is  hers,  we  put  the  club  in  her  hand  and  beg  her 
to  use  it. 


THE    CURSE  OF    PAUPERISM. 

The  Pauper  Poison. 

'T^HERE  is  not  a  more  humiliating  characteristic  of 
*■  human  nature  than  its  aptitude  for  pauperism.  It 
is  alike  discouraging  and  disgusting.  It  is  now  publicly 
declared,  by  responsible  professional  men,  that  the  ma- 
jority of  those  who  receive  medicines  at  the  free  dispen- 
saries in  this  city  are  able  to  pay  for  them,  and  pretend 
to  be  poor  simply  to  avoid  paying  for  them.  It  is  also 
declared  that  between  thirty  and  thirty-five  per  cent,  of 
our  population  are  receiving  medical  attendance  gratui- 
tously. Instances  are  detailed  in  which  genteelly  dressed 
men  and  women,  and  persons  known  to  be  possessed  of 
considerable  real  estate,  have  begged  for  medicine. 

Now,  this  is  only  an  indication  of  the  presence  of  a 
moral  poison,  distributed  throughout  the  whole  Ameri- 
can people.  It  may  not  be  as  prevalent  here  as  it  is 
abroad  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  has  not  had 
so  long  a  time  to  work.  They  are  all  manifestations  of 
tlie  pauper  poison,  however — these  multiform  attempts 
that  are  made  to  get  something  for  nothing.  The  old 
"  dead-head  system  "  on  the  railroads,  not  entirely  done 
away  with  now,  was  only  a  branch  of  pauperism,  and  it 
is  astonisliing  to  sec  how  many  people  there  are  to-day 
who  are  willing  to  part  with  self-respect  in  order  to  get 
a  free  pass  on  a  railroad  or  a  steamboat.     To  enjoy  a 


220  Every-Day    Topics. 

ride,  the  expense  of  which  comes  out  of  somebody  else, 
is,  to  the  ordinary  human  soul,  exceeding  sweet.  If  the 
willing  and  rejoicing  dead-head  is  to  be  found  plentifully 
scattered  through  good  society,  it  must  not  be  wondered 
at  that  among  the  humbler  classes  his  equivalent  is  met 
with  at  every  turn.  This  whole  matter  of  "  tipping" 
waiters,  and  of  waiters  expecting  to  be  "  tipped,"  is  a 
very  marked  manifestation  of  the  poison  of  pauperism. 
A  man  steps  into  a  restaurant  to  purchase  and  con- 
sume a  meal.  He  finds  a  waiter  at  his  side  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  wait  upon  him.  It  was  for  this  service  that 
he  was  hired  by  the  proprietor,  and  he  is  paid  for  it  what 
his  labor  is  worth.  At  any  rate,  his  service  is  reckoned 
into  the  bill  of  the  customer,  and  when  that  bill  is  paid, 
the  customer's  obligations  are  all  discharged.  Never- 
theless, there  stands  the  expectant  waiter,  who  hopes  to 
be  twice  paid  for  his  work,  or,  rather,  hopes  to  receive 
something  for  nothing.  The  whole  army  of  waiters  have 
become,  in  their  souls,  beggars.  Their  little  arts  of  extra 
attentiveness  are  the  arts  of  beggary,  and  nothing  else. 
Their  practical  and  obtrusive  pauperism  is  a  nuisance  to 
the  community,  as  well  as  a  curse  to  them.  Manhood 
goes  out  as  the  fee,  unearned,  comes  in.  Manhood  stays 
out  of  one  whose  expectation  is  always  hankering  for  a  tip. 

We  have  said  that  the  waiter  is  paid  for  his  service  by 
his  employer,  but  this  is  not  always  so.  The  proprietor 
himself  is  often  a  pauper.  He  tries  to  get  something  for 
nothing.  He  charges  full  prices  for  his  food,  and  cheats 
the  waiter  out  of  his  wages,  that  he  may  compel  him  to 
collect  them  of  his  customers.  He  not  only  practises 
the  arts  cf  the  pauper  himself,  but  he  actually  forces 
Lis  waiters  into  practical  pauperism. 

The  spoils  docrine,  as  it  has  been  held  and  practised 
in  party  politics  for  the  last  thirty  years,  is  a  pauper  doc- 
trine.    It  has  grown  out  of  the  almost  universal  wish  to 


The   Curse  of  Pauperism.  221 

get  a  living,  or  to  get  rich,  at  the  public  expense.  To 
get  a  chance  at  the  public  money,  men  have  been  ■will- 
ing to  sell  their  independence,  to  do  the  dirty  work  of 
ambitious  politicians,  and  to  become  morally  debased 
to  an  utterly  hopeless  extent.  Men  have  hung  to  cor- 
porations in  the  same  way,  and  they  cannot  yet  be  shaken 
off  from  them.  To  get  something  for  nothing — to  get 
something  for  less  than  it  is  worth — to  get  something 
without  paying  for  it  its  equivalent  in  good,  honest  work, 
especially  if  it  could  be  taken  from  the  Government  or  a 
corporation — this  has  been  the  shameful  greed  of  the  age, 
and  it  is  only  pauperism.  It  comes  from  the  genuine 
poison.  It  is  a  direct  and  legitimate  development  of 
the  moral  scrofula  which  taints  the  blood  of  the  country. 
The  signs  of  the  poison  arc  everywhere.  They  are 
notably  wherever  there  is  a  spirit  of  speculation.  Wall 
street  is  the  very  paradise  of  pauperism — its  paradise  or 
its  hell,  it  matters  little  which.  Wherever  there  is  a  man 
who  is  getting  something  for  nothing — receiving  it,  not 
as  a  dire  necessity,  but  gladly  and  as  a  matter  of  policy 
— there  is  a  pauper.  There  are  multitudes  of  churches 
that  insist  that  their  ministers  shall  be  paupers.  They 
never  establish  a  thorough  business  relation  between 
themselves  and  their  teachers,  but  it  is  a  gift  by  whatso- 
ever the  latter  may  be  benefited.  Unhappily,  there  are 
too  many  ministers  who  accept  the  position  gladly.  Of 
course,  there  is  a  vital  distinction  between  the  gifts  that 
flow  toward  a  public  teacher  as  manifestations  of  the 
popular  affection,  and  gifts  that  are  doled  out  to  him  be- 
cause it  is  thought  that  he  needs  them.  The  first  can  be 
received  with  honor  ;  but  the  second  cannot  be  received, 
in  any  case  where  the  money  has  been  honestly  earned, 
without  the  disgrace  of  the  recipient  and  the  moral  dam- 
wi^  of  the  donor.  But  it  happens  that  multitudes  of 
ministers  are  actually  trained  for  pauperism,      la  a  cer- 


222  Every-Day    Topics. 

tain  notable  theological  school,  which  now  contains  one 
hundred  and  ten  students,  there  are  ninety  young  men 
who  are  receiving  aid.  What  method  is  it  possible  to  pur- 
sue with  these  men,  so  sure  to  destroy  their  independence 
and  manliness,  as  this  ?  How  easy  it  will  be  for  these 
men,  having  once  accepted  alms  and  lived  on  that  which 
has  cost  them  nothing,  to  go  on  in  that  course,  and  how 
horrible  it  is  to  have  inore  than  half  of  the  clergy  trained 
up  to  a  love  of  dependence  rather  than  to  a  hatred  of  it ! 
We  have  the  poison  of  pauperism  here  at  the  very  foun- 
tain-head of  what  we  regard  as  the  highest  and  best  in- 
fluences. 

We  have  no  doubt  that  these  representations  will  seem 
overwrought  to  those  who  have  not  accustomed  them- 
selves to  examining  and  thinking  upon  the  subject,  but 
they  are  not  overwrought.  The  subtlety  of  this  pauper 
poison  enables  it  to  enter  ten  thousand  forms  of  life,  and 
to  hide  itself  behind  innumerable  disguises.  Wherever 
there  is  a  man  who  desires  to  get  something  without 
rendering  its  equivalent  in  money  or  work — a  man,  we 
mean,  who  has  the  equivalent  to  render — there  is  a  pau- 
per. It  matters  nothing  that  he  wears  good  clothes,  or 
occupies  a  good  position.  The  poison  is  in  his  soul, 
eating  out — if  it  has  not  already  eaten  out — his  manhood. 

The  Disease  of  Mendicancy. 

An  English  paper,  in  some  recent  utterance,  re- 
minded the  American  nation  of  the  appearance  of  an 
vmmistakable  evidence  that  it  is  growing  old.  It  pos- 
sesses "the  tramp."  The  war  left  with  us,  as  war 
always  leaves  in  every  country,  a  great  number  of  men 
utterly  demoralized.  The  hard  times  have  cut  them 
loose  from  remunerative  work,  and  they  have  become 
rovers,  nominally  looking   for   employment,  but    really 


TJie   Curse  of  Pauperism.  223 

looking  for  life  without  it.  They  have  lost  their  self- 
respect,  if  they  ever  had  any ;  lost  their  love  of  steady  in- 
dustry, lost  all  desire  for  independence,  lost  their  sense 
of  manhood  and  of  shame,  and  have  imbibed  the  incura- 
ble disease  of  mendicancy.  We  mistake  the  nature  of 
the  case  entirely,  if  we  suppose  that  better  times  and 
fair  wages  for  all,  would  cure  these  men  and  relieve  the 
country  of  their  presence  and  their  support.  Leprosy  is 
not  more  incurable  than  mendicancy.  When  the  dis- 
ease has  once  fastened  itself  upon  a  man — when,  through 
long  months  or  years,  he  has  willingly  and  gladly  lived 
on  the  industry  of  others,  and  roamed  around  without  a 
home — he  becomes  a  hopeless  case,  and  nothing  but  the 
strong  arm  of  the  law  can  make  him  a  self-supporting 
man. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  dead-beat,  who  is  only  "the 
tramp  "  of  the  city.  He  is  not  so  humble  a  man  as  the 
country  tramp.  He  dresses  better  and  supports  him- 
self by  different  methods.  He  is  the  man  who  wants  to 
get  to  Boston  or  Baltimore,  where  he  has  friends.  He 
is  the  man  who  has  just  arrived  from  the  South,  having 
run  as  far  as  New  York  to  get  away  from  the  yellow  fever, 
or  whatever  trouble  may  be  in  progress  there  at  the  date 
of  his  application.  He  is  the  man  who  wishes  to  get 
money  to  bury  his  wife  or  child.  Or,  he  is  about  to  receive 
funds,  but  is  in  a  starving  condition,  and  wants  some- 
thing to  assist  him  in  "  bridging  over."  If  you  haj^pen 
to  have  been  born  in  Vermont,  he  comes  to  you  as  a 
"V'^ermonter.  Perhaps  he  comes  to  you  because  you  and 
he  happen  to  have  the  same  name.  There  is  no  end  to 
the  lies  he  can  tell  and  docs  tell.  We  have  some  very 
genteel  and  high  and  mighty  dead-beats  in  New  York, 
who  never  stoop  to  beg,  but  rise  to  borrow,  and  forget 
to  pay.  We  know  of  one  woman  here,  claiming  to  be 
productively  literary,  who  apparently  lives  well   on  the 


224  Every-Day   Topics. 

funds  which  a  bright  and  sweet-faced  daughter  borrows 
for  her.  Now,  all  these  people  are  hopelessly  diseased. 
They  can  never  be  restored  to  sound  manhood  and 
womanhood.  What  is  worse  than  all  the  rest  is  that 
they  perpetuate  their  mendicancy  through  their  families. 
So  we  have  the  tramps  and  the  dead-beats,  and  the 
regular  old-fashioned  paupers,  and  they  are  all  alike — • 
with  some  exceptions,  perhaps,  in  favor  of  the  regular 
old-fashioned  paupers  ;  for  now  and  then  there  is  one  of 
these  who,  iriuch  against  his  will,  has  been  forced  by 
circumstances  into  pauperism. 

What  are  we  to  do  with  these  people  ?  How  is  this 
disease  to  be  treated  ?  These  questions  demand  an 
early  answer,  for  the  evils  to  which  they  relate  are  in- 
creasing with  alarming  rapidity.  There  is  the  general 
feeling  that  they  v.ill  take  care  of  themselves,  so  soon  as 
prosperous  times  shall  return  ;  but,  as  we  have  already 
said,  this  is  a  mistake.  The  dead-beat  will  never  re- 
form. The  tramp  will  be  a  tramp  for  life,  shifting  from 
country  to  city  as  his  comforts  may  demand,  and  ready 
to  be  led  into  any  mischief  which  will  give  him  "  grub  " 
and  grog.  .There  ought  to  be,  this  very  winter,  in  every 
State  in  the  Union,  such  laws  passed  as  will  restrain  the 
wanderers,  and  force  them  to  self-support  in  some  public 
institution.  A  standing  commission  of  vagrancy  should 
be  instituted  in  every  large  city  and  every  county  in  the 
land ;  and  institutions  of  industry  established  for  the 
purpose  of  making  these  men  self-supporting,  and  of 
curing  them  of  their  wretched  disease.  We  have  lunatic 
asylums,  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  the  lunatics,  but  for 
the  relief  of  the  community  ;  and  among  the  dead-beats 
and  tramps  we  have  an  enormous  number  of  men  who 
are  just  as  truly  diseased  as  the  maddest  man  in  Utica, 
or  at  the  Bloomingdale  Asylum.  Something  must  be 
done  with  them,  and  done  at  once,  if  we  are  to  have  any 


Tlie  Curse  of  Pauperism.  225 

comfort  by  day  or  safety  by  night ;  for  men  who  are  so 
demoralized  as  to  beg  from  choice  and  lie  by  profes- 
sion, have  but  to  take  a  single  step  to  land  in  ruffianism. 
Already  they  intimidate,  and  rob  and  murder,  to  get  the 
means  to  support  their  useless  lives. 

It  is  only  last  year  that  we  heard  of  a  force  of  five 
hundred  of  them  approaching  a  Western  city,  to  the 
universal  alarm  of  the  inhabitants.  The  disclosures' 
connected  with  the  recent  fraudulent  registration  in  this 
city  show  how  easy  it  is,  under  the  lead  of  demagogues, 
to  assemble  them  by  tens  of  thousands  at  any  point  de- 
sired, and  how  readily  they  can  be  induced  to  perjure 
their  souls  for  bread  and  beer.  These  facts  menace  both 
our  homes  and  our  liberties.  It  is  not  a  tramp,  here  and 
there,  such  as  we  have  at  all  times  ;  but  it  is  an  army  of 
tramps  that  can  be  brought  together  on  the  slightest  oc- 
casion, for  any  deed  of  rascality  and  blood  which  it  may 
please  them  to  engage  in.  The  evil  has  come  upon 
us  so  noiselessly — -so  almost  imperceptibly — that  it  is 
hard  for  us  to  realize  that  we  are  tolerating,  and  feeding 
for  nothing,  a  huge  brood  of  banditti,  who  will  ultimately 
become  as  monstrous  and  as  disgraceful  to  our  country 
and  to  Christian  civilization  as  the  banditti  of  Greece  or 
Southern  Italy. 

The  one  fact  which  we  wish  to  impress  upon  the  peo- 
ple, and  upon  legislators,  in  this  article,  is  that  the  c\  il 
which  we  are  describing  and  commenting  upon  is  not 
one  that  will  cure  itself— is  not  one  that  will  be  cured  by 
national  prosperity — is  not  one  that  will  be  cured  by 
driving  tramps  from  one  State  into  another — and  is  a 
hopelessly  demoralizing  mental  disease.  It  must  be 
taken  hold  of  vigorously,  and  handled  efficiently  and 
wisely.  There  is  not  a  month  to  be  lost.  Thus  far  in 
the  history  of  the  country  we  have  been  singularly  free 
from  anv  pauperism  but  that  which  we  have  imported 
10* 


226  Every -Day   Topics. 

from  the  great  European  repositories  of  pauperism. 
But  matters  have  changed.  The  tramps  are  not  all 
foreigners.  They  are,  to  a  very  considerable  number, 
our  own  American  flesh  and  blood,  and  unless  we  are 
willing  to  see  the  country  drift  into  the  condition  of  the 
older  peoples  of  the  world,  where  mendicancy  has  grown 
to  be  a  gigantic  burden  and  curse,  and  pauperism  a 
•thing  of  hopeless  heredity,  we  must  do  something  to 
check  the  evil,  and  do  it  at  once. 

The  Public  Charities. 

There  comes  to  our  table  a  little  volume  from  the  pen 
of  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall,  entitled  "  Words  of  Warning,  in 
Prose  and  Verse,  addressed  to  Societies  for  Organizing 
Charitable  Relief  and  Suppressing  Mendicity."  It  is  an 
exceedingly  sentimental  little  book,  and,  if  it  had  been 
written  by  an  author  less  venerable  than  Mr.  Hall,  it 
would  seem  impertinent.  But  Mr.  Hall  is  very  much  in 
earnest,  and  takes  the  liberty  of  his  years  to  scold  as  well 
as  to  warn.  His  quarrel  seems  to  be  with  the  societies 
that,  before  giving,  wish  to  investigate  the  circumstances 
of  the  applicant  for  alms  : 

"  You  teach  us  how  to  shirk  the  beggar  tribe, 
And  tell  us  to  give  nothing,  but  subscribe. 
Of  course  we  can't  pay  double,  so  we  do 
The  business  part  of  charity  through  you." 

Here  follows  a  sharper  paragraph  : 

"  '  Give  nought  to  common  beggars  ' — that's  the  rule  ; 
The  Alpha  and  Omega  of  your  school  ; 
You  bid  us  send  all  suppliants  to  your  door  ; 
When  sad  or  sick,  or  desolate  or  poor  ; 
After  inquiry  duly  made,  you  give 
To  such  as — pending  the  proceedings — live  ! 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  227 

Mr.  Hall  proceeds  to  cite  a  good  many  cases,  or  sup- 
posable  cases,  which  go  to  show  that  societies  are  slow, 
and  he  says,  still  in  rhyme  : 

''  Better  a  score  of  times  be  '  taken  in,' 
Than  let  one  suffering  sinner  die  in  sin — 
Than  hear  the  coroner  to-morrow  say, 
'  Died  starved,'  of  one  you  might  have  saved  to-day." 

It  is  a  long  and  formidable  arraignment  which  he  makes 
of  the  "  organizations,"  ending  with  the  following 
charges : 

''They  give  to  Mercy  a  perpetual  frown, 
And  Hope  they  keep — with  broken  anchor — down. 
To  Charity  they  lend  the  garb  she  scorns, 
And  Love  himself — eternal  Love — they  crown, 
Not  with  the  sacred  nimbus,  but  the  thorns  !  " 

To  Mr.  Hall's  poetical  efforts,  he  adds  some  "  Words  of 
Warning "  in  prose,  in  which  he  e.xpresses  the  belief 
that  the  organizations  which  engage  his  opposition  "  dry 
up  the  natural  channel  of  the  heart,  check  or  destroy 
sympathy  for  suffering,  make  indifference  to  woe  excusa- 
ble, if  not  obligatory,"  etc.,  etc. 

We  have  thus  tried  to  give  the  drift  of  our  friend's 
little  book,  and  we  can  only  respond  that,  imperfect  as 
the  organizations  are,  and  professionally  indifferent  and 
dilatory  as  they  arc  too  apt  to  become,  they  are,  on  the 
whole,  very  much  better  managers  and  counsellors  than 
he  is.  It  is  very  nice  to  yield  to  one's  benevolent  im- 
pulses ;  it  is  good  to  be  developed  in  the  high  benigni- 
ties ;  there  is  no  pleasure  greater  than  that  which  is  born 
of  personal  beneficence  ;  but  if,  in  order  to  compass 
these  advantages  to  ourselves,  we  are  certain  to  develop 
a  thousand  liars  and  make  as  many  paupers,  do  not  our 
satisfaction  and  improvement  become  somewhat  expen- 
sive to  the  community  ?     Indeed,  it  is  quite  possible  to 


228  Every  -Day   Top  ics. 

make  our  benevolence  the  most  selfish  quality  we  pos- 
sess. We  can  easily  imagine  men  who  selfishly  hug  to 
themselves  the  delight  of  giving,  right  and  left,  to  those 
who  excite  their  sympathy  and  pity,  while  they  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  falsehoods  and  tricks  which  they  have 
encouraged. 

It  is  very  sad  to  remember  that  the  "  organizations  " 
of  which  Mr.  Hall  speaks  so  bitterly  have  had  their  ori- 
gin in  a  great,  commanding,  public  necessity.  If  nine 
beggars  in  ten  had  ever  been  proved  to  be  true  objects 
of  charity,  then  we  could  afford  to  give  without  investi- 
gation ;  but  it  is  perfectly  well  understood  that  more 
than  nine  beggars  in  ten  are  liars,  and  that  impulsive  and 
indiscriminate  giving,  even  to  those  who  are  worthy,  de- 
moralizes them.  It  is  appalling  to  think  that  wherever 
a  charitable  door  is  opened,  whether  it  lead  to  a  benevo- 
lent individual  or  a  benevolent  society,  the  throng  that 
enter  are  mainly  shams  and  cheats. 

The  physicians  of  New  York  have  had  their  attention 
called  recently  to  the  abuses  of  the  free  dispensaries  of 
medicines.  They  were  satisfied  that  multitudes  were 
availing  themselves  of  the  benefits  of  the  free  dispensa- 
ries who  could  afford  to  pay  for  their  medicines.  A 
visitor  of  the  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor  took  up  the  matter,  and  investigated  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-two  cases.  Of  sixty-two  male  applicants, 
twenty-three  were  not  found  at  all  —  they  had  given 
wrong  addresses.  Twenty  families  reported  wages  per 
Aveck  of  from  three  to  eighteen  dollars,  while  their  rent 
per  month  was  from  nine  to  twelve  dollars.  Only  six  of 
the  sixty-two  were  found  to  be  without  means.  Of  the 
ninety  females  who  applied,  thirty-five  gave  wrong  ad- 
dresses, and  could  not  be  found.  Only  six  of  the 
whole  number — the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the  males 
— were  found  to  be   without  means.       Cleaners,   laun- 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  229 

dresses,  paper-folders,  cigar-makers,  cap-makers,  artifi- 
cial flower  makers,  etc.,  were  represented  among  the 
applicants  who  were  found  with  family  wages  going  as 
high  in  some  instances  as  twenty  dollars  a  week.  So 
here  were  twelve  out  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  indi- 
viduals applying  for  a  certain  form  of  aid  who  really  had 
a  claim  for  aid,  and  a  hundred  and  forty  who  could  have 
paid  for  that  which  they  lied  to  obtain  for  nothing ! 

Now,  if  we  arc  to  learn  anything  from  this  investiga- 
tion, it  is  that,  by  following  the  advice  of  such  amiable 
enthusiasts  as  Mr.  Hall,  we  encourage  eleven  applicants 
for  charity  in  the  most  rascally  falsehood  and  deception, 
while  we  really  help  only  one  who  is  worthy  of  our  alms. 
Can  we  atTord  this,  even  if  it  should  happen  to  help  us 
in  the  development  of  a  beneficent  life  ?  We  think  not. 
Nay,  we  may  go  farther  and  say  that  no  man  has  a  moral 
right  in  such  a  community  as  ours  to  take  the  matter  of 
giving  into  his  own  hands,  unless  he  is  willing  to  devote 
all  the  requisite  time  to  investigating  the  cases  to  which 
he  takes  the  responsibility  of  ministering.  Just  as  soon 
as  he  undertakes  to  do  this,  the  first  fact  he  will  meet  is 
the  impossibility  of  obtaining  the  addresses  of  his  bene- 
ficiaries. Fifty-eight  out  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-two 
who  begged  for  medicine  lied  concerning  the  places 
where  they  lived.  The  chances  are  that  every  one  of 
these  persons  had  money,  or  was  engaged  in  some  pur- 
suit of  which  he  or  she  was  ashamed.  It  is  fair  to  con- 
clude, at  least,  that  if  any  agent  of  the  dispensary  were 
really  to  find  out  the  circumstances  of  these  persons,  he 
would  adjudge  them  unworthy  of  aid.  Needy  people  are 
not  apt  to  cover  up  the  circumstances  which  will  sub- 
stantiate their  claims  to  charity.  This  matter  has  been 
tried  a  great  many  times,  and  after  a  man  has  gone,  in 
vain,  all  over  town  to  find  the  objects  of  charity  who 
have  cheated  him  into  helping  them,  and  then  carefully 


230  Every -Day   Topics. 

thrown  him  off  their  scent,  he  begins  to  think  very  well 
of  "  organization  " — that  red  rag  which  so  stirs  up  the 
Bull  in  the  venerable  English  poet. 

Such  "organization"  as  we  have,  in  most  of  the 
American  cities,  is  sufficiently  open  to  criticism,  with- 
out doubt.  We  have  altogether  too  much  of  it,  and  too 
much  of  the  competitive  element  in  it  ;  but  wise  and 
kindly  managed  organization  gives  us  our  only  safety  in 
dealing  with  pauperism.  Individual  giving  may  be  very 
pleasant  to  Mr.  Hall  and  his  friends,  but  it  is  sure  to 
make  a  great  deal  of  work  in  the  long  run  for  the  societies 
whose  policy  and  work  he  contemns.  The  time  seems  to 
be  past  when  sentimentality  can  be  used  with  safety  in 
the  administration  of  charitable  relief. 

Onxe  IMore  the  Tramp. 

is  very  strange  that  no  more  vigorous  measures  are 
taken  for  the  abatement  of  what  is  very  properly  called 
"  the  tramp  nuisance."  It  is  strange,  because  the  nui- 
sance is  as  great  in  the  country  as  it  is  in  the  city,  and 
there  is  no  section  and  no  interest  that  would  not  be 
served  by  a  sweeping  measure  of  suppression.  A  feel- 
ing has  undoubtedly  existed  that  much  of  the  tramping 
is  attributable  to  the  bad  times — that  men  are  wandering 
in  honest  search  of  employment.  This  feeling  should  be 
corrected  by  this  time.  If  anything  is  notorious  now,  it  is 
that  ninety-nine  tramps  in  a  hundred — an  overwhelming 
proportion,  at  any  rate — would  not  work  at  any  wages,  if 
they  could.  The  experiment  tried  in  Massachusetts  by 
detectives  exposes  the  utter  hollowness  of  the  pretence 
that  these  fellows  desire  work.  They  scorn  work  and 
scout  the  idea  of  engaging  in  it.  They  coolly  propose  to 
live  upon  the  community,  and  to  "  eat  their  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  other  men's  faces,"  and  to  do  .this  in  perpciuo. 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  231 

In  the  city,  where  these  parasites  prefer  to  spend  the 
winter,  it  is  not  so  very  hard  to  get  along  with  them. 
They  are  an  offensive,  dirty,  disgraceful  set  to  have 
around,  it  is  true.  One  shrinks  from  contact  with  them 
— shivering  in  their  abominable  rags  and  dirt — and  feeds 
them  with  cold  victuals  at  his  basement  door,  but  he  is 
not  afraid  of  them.  In  the  country,  during  the  summer, 
and  near  the  great  lines  of  travel,  the  tramp  is  a  different 
being.  Whatever  of  enterprise  there  may  be  in  him  is 
exhibited  during  that  season.  Then  he  can  steal  eggs, 
rob  hen-roosts,  bully  women  and  children  who  find 
themselves  unprotected  at  home  while  the  men  are  in 
the  fields,  set  forests  on  fire,  and  commit  burglaries  and 
murders  whenever  it  may  be  desirable  and  convenient. 
They  rove  in  bands.  We  have  seen  them  in  forests  dur- 
ing the  past  winter  near  inland  cities — a  dozen  of  them 
smoking  and  lounging  beside  a  fire  made  of  stolen  wood. 
They  are  to  be  counted  by  tens  of  thousands,  and  they 
stand  ready  to  go  into  any  mischief  into  which  the  dem- 
agogue with  money  in  his  pocket  may  see  fit  to  lead 
them.  They  are  the  very  lowest  layer  of  the  proletariat 
— a  class  whose  existence  in  America  has  been  declared 
again  and  again,  and  in  no  case  more  distinctly  and  de- 
plorably than  in  the  labor-riots  of  last  year.  No  diffi- 
culty can  rise  between  labor  and  capital  at  which  these 
fellows  will  not  be  ready  to  "  assist."  They  stand  wait- 
ing, a  great  multitude,  to  join  in  any  mob  that  will  give 
them  the  slightest  apology  for  pillage,  and  the  safety  in 
robbery  that  comes  of  numbers.  We  have  no  doubt  that 
they  would  have  been  glad  to  sign  a  petition  for  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Bland  silver  bill. 

We  cannot  do  what  the  French  Government  once  did 
under  similar  circumstances— banish  fifty  thousand  of 
them  to  colonial  servitude  ;  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that  we 
cannot.     If  we  could  gather  the  whole  disgusting  multi' 


232  Every-Day   Topics. 

tude,  wash  them,  put  new  clothes  upon  them,  and  under 
military  surveillance  and  direction  set  them  to  quarrying 
stone,  or  raising  corn  and  cotton  for  ten  years,  we  might 
save  some  of  them  to  decency  and  respectability,  and 
relieve  the  honest  people  of  the  country  of  their  pres- 
ence and  their  support.  If  we  cannot  do  this,  however, 
there  are  things  we  can  do.  Every  State  in  the  Union 
can  gather  these  men,  wherever  found,  into  work-houses, 
where  they  can  be  restrained  from  scaring  and  preying 
upon  the  community,  and  made  to  earn  the  bread  they 
eat  and  the  clothes  they  wear.  It  is  necessary,  of  course, 
to  throw  away  all  sentimentality  in  connection  with  them. 
The  tramp  is  a  man  who  can  be  approached  by  no  mo- 
tive but  pain — the  pain  of  a  thrashing  or  the  pain  of 
hunger.  He  hates  work  ;  he  has  no  self-respect  and  no 
shame  ;  and,  by  counting  himself  permanently  out  of 
the  productive  and  self-supporting  forces  of  society,  he 
counts  himself  out  of  his  rights.  He  has  no  rights  but 
those  which  society  may  see  fit  of  its  grace  to  bestow 
upon  him.  He  has  no  more  rights  than  the  sow  that 
wallows  in  the  gutter,  or  the  lost  dogs  that  hover  around 
the  city  squares.  He  is  no  more  to  be  consulted,  in  his 
wishes  or  his  will,  in  the  settlement  of  the  question  as  to 
what  is  to  be  done  with  him,  than  if  he  were  a  bullock  in 
a  corral. 

Legislation  concerning  this  evil  seems  to  have  been 
initiated  in  various  States,  but  at  this  writing  we  cannot 
learn  that  anything  effective  has  been  done.  It  would 
be  well  if  the  States  could  work  in  concert  in  this  mat- 
ter ;  but  one  great  State  like  New  York,  or  Pennsylvania, 
or  Ohio,  has  only  to  inaugurate  a  stringent  measure  to 
drive  all  the  other  states  into  measures  that  shall  be  its 
equivalent.  The  tramp  whose  freedom  is  imperilled  in 
New  York,  will  fly  to  New  Jersey  or  New  England,  and 
New  Jersey  and  New  England  will  be  obliged  to  protect 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  233 

themselves.  So  one  powerful  state  can  compel  unan- 
imity of  action  throughout  the  country.  The  legislature 
of  New  York  had  a  bill  up  a  year  ago  which  came  to 
nothing.  We  hope  the  present  session  will  see  some- 
thing done,  but  legislators  have  so  many  things  to  do 
besides  looking  after  the  public  safety  and  the  public 
morality,  that  we  are  quite  prepared  to  hear  that  this 
matter  will  be  overlooked.  But  something  must  be  done, 
somewhere,  very  soon,  if  we  propose  to  have  anything 
like  safety  and  comfort  in  our  homes,  or  to  relieve  our- 
selves of  a  great  burden  of  voluntary,  vicious,  and  even 
malicious  pauperism. 

Pauperizing  the  Clergy. 

We  had  occasion,  in  a  recent  article  on  the  general 
topic  of  pauperism,  to  speak  of  the  bad  influences  of 
charitable  aid  when  rendered  to  young  men  preparing 
for  the  Christian  ministry.  As  everything  we  said  was 
conceived  in  a  spirit  of  the  warmest  friendliness  toward 
the  profession,  we  were  not  quite  prepared  for  the  acrid, 
not  to  say  contemptuous,  criticism  with  which  it  was  re- 
ceived by  a  portion  of  the  religious  press.  W^e  had  sup- 
posed that  the  desirableness  of  independent  means  in 
the  acquisition  of  an  education,  for  any  profession,  was 
beyond  controversy.  We  had  supposed  that  clergy  and 
laity  alike  regarded  it  a  misfortune  to  a  young  man  to  be 
in  any  way  obliged  to  accept  aid  in  preparing  himself 
for  the  work  of  his  life.  Indeed,  they  undoubtedly  so 
regard  it  still  ;  and  if  it  is  for  any  other  reason  than  that 
it  tends  to  degrade  and  pauperize  him,  we  have  not 
learned  it. 

But  one  religious  paper,  which  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  its  chddishness,  has  undertaken  to  controvert  this 
very  widely  held  opinion.     We  have  not  its  words  before 


234  Every -Day    Topics. 

us,  but  the  point  it  makes  is  that  if  it  pauperizes  a  young 
man  to  have  his  education  given  him,  it  will  pauperize 
him  equally  whether  it  is  given  him  by  the  hand  of 
charity  or  by  the  hand  of  his  parents  !  Another  religious 
paper  copies  this  with  approval !  We  should  do  both 
papers  great  injustice  if  we  should  assume  that  they  do 
not  know  better  than  this.  The  sophistry  is  so  puerile  that 
one  feels  humiliated  in  being  compelled  to  expose  it.  A 
man  who  takes  the  responsibility  of  introducing  a  child 
into  existence  assumes  certain  duties  and  obligations 
which  place  him  in  relations  to  his  offspring  such  as  he 
holds  to  no  other  human  being.  The  child  possesses 
certain  rights  in  his  father's  labor,  his  acquired  capital, 
his  home,  his  conditions,  that  can  never  be  alienated  ex- 
cept by  his  crimes.  Among  these  rights  is  that  of  a  prep- 
aration for  the  work  and  duty  of  life.  Now,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  position  of  a  boy  who  feels  that  in  his 
education  he  is  receiving  his  natural  and  legal  right,  and 
of  one  who  knows  that  his  education  comes  to  him  as  a 
gift  of  charity  to  helplessness,  is  about  as  wide  as  can  be 
conceived.  Nobody  knows  this  any  better  than  the 
charity  student  himself.  If  he  is  manly,  his  position 
galls  and  worries  him,  and  he  is  never  happy  until  he  has 
in  some  way  paid  off  his  debt.  If  he  is  not  manly,  it  has 
a  powerful  influence  in  making  him  a  pauper  for  life. 
We  say,  then,  that  the  religious  paper  which  declares 
that  the  influence  of  charitable  aid  is  the  same  as  pa- 
rental is  not  candid.  It  knows  better  and  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  itself. 

More  plausable,  and  more  candid  without  doubt,  is  a 
correspondent  of  a  secular  paper  who  compares  the  stu- 
dent at  West  Point  with  the  charity  student.  At  West 
Point,  a  young  man  receives  not  only  his  tuition,  but  his 
support,  without  charge  ;  and  the  influence  of  this  educa- 
tion is  not  regarded  as  a  pauperizing  one.     On  the  con- 


TJic  Curse  of  Pauperism.  235 

trary,  it  is  looked  upon  as  a  most  honorable  and  stimu- 
lating one.  Now,  why  should  not  an  education  bestowed 
by  the  Government  have  the  same  effect  upon  the  mind 
of  the  recipient  as  one  bestowed  by  the  gifts  of  the  be- 
nevolent ?  We  may  state  as  a  fact  that  it  does  not,  and 
that  everybody  is  conscious  that  it  docs  not.  We  may 
assume,  therefore,  that  there  is  a  sound  reason  for  this 
difference  in  the  facts.  The  Government  thinks  it  worth 
its  money  to  have  an  educated  body  of  men,  learned  in 
the  art  of  war,  to  be  always  ready  for  service.  This  body 
of  men,  in  surrendering  themselves  to  discipline,  and 
holding  themselves  ready  for  what  is  expected  of  them, 
have  the  consciousness  of  rendering  an  equivalent  for 
what  they  receive.  They  arc  ready  to  pay  their  debt  ia 
the  only  way  in  which  it  is  desired  to  be  paid,  or  can  be 
paid.  The  aid  they  have  received  is  in  no  possible  sense 
a  charity.  It  is  given  by  the  country  for  a  considera- 
tion ;  it  is  accepted  by  the  student  who  perfectly  under- 
stands the  nature  of  the  equivalent  he  renders. 

There  are  those,  undoubtedly,  who  would  undertake 
to  point  out  a  parallel  between  the  church  and  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  to  maintain  that  the  young  man  who  gives 
himself  to  the  church  renders  an  equivalent  for  all  the 
church  may  do  for  him,  in  preparing  him  for  service. 
We  are  not,  however,  talking  about  what  may  or  might 
be,  or  what  ought  to  be.  We  are  talking  about  what  is, 
and  the  simple  fact  is  that  the  aid  given  to  the  students 
for  the  ministry  is,  and  is  felt  to  be,  charitable  aid.  It 
carries  no  such  self-respect  with  it  as  is  entertained  by 
the  son  who  is  educated  by  his  father's  money,  in  the 
enjoyment  of  a  heaven-bestowed  right,  and  no  West 
Point  pride,  bred  in  an  institution  that  takes  no  note  of 
ricli  or  poor,  but  identifies  itself  with  the  governmental 
interest  and  honor. 

Wliatever  we  may  have  written  upon  this  subject,  first 


236  Every- Day   Topics. 

or  last — and  we  have  written  a  good  deal  upon  it — we 
have  had  at  heart  the  interest  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
The  body  is  disgraced  by  a  large  and  not  rapidly  dimin- 
ishing mass  of  men  who  occupy  in  their  parishes  the 
position  of  paupers.  How  and  when  they  became 
willing  to  be  the  constant  recipients  of  gifts  we  do  not 
know. 

We  do  not  think  they  are  the  sons  of  men  who  were 
able  to  give  them  an  education.  We  do  not  think  they 
are  men  who  wrought  out  their  own  education.  We 
have  no  doubt  that  they  are  men  who  began  by  being 
helped,  and  who,  to  the  disgrace  of  their  profession, 
have  remained  willing  to  be  recipients  of  charity  from 
year  to  year.  If  there  is  a  man  in  this  world  who 
should  be  in  independent  circumstances  it  is  the  Christian 
teacher.  Generous  support  is  a  matter  of  right,  and  any 
minister  who  will  consent  to  receive  the  payment  for  his 
work  with  even  the  smell  of  charity  upon  it,  is  a  pauper. 
This  is  what  we  ask  for — a  body  of  men  who  hate  char- 
ity as  it  relates  to  themselves,  who  are  "  touchy  "  as  it 
concerns  their  business  rights,  and  who  compel  their 
parishes  to  understand  that  their  money  has  its  equiva- 
lent in  ministerial  work  as  truly  as  in  any  work.  This, 
too,  is  what  we  ask  for — a  body  of  young  men  who  will 
be  willing  to  wait  five  years  that  they  may  earn  money 
rather  than  touch  a  dollar  of  "help  " — a  body  that  will 
enter  the  pulpit  mortgaged  to  no  society  of  old  women 
of  either  sex,  and  with  a  sincere  hatred  of  all  the  in- 
fluences that  tend  to  degrade  their  profession  in  the  eyes 
of  a  practical  business  world.  And  we  cannot  conceive 
how  anybody  can  fmd  fault  with  these  views  and  wishes 
and  motives  of  ours,  unless  they  touch  to  consciousness 
a  pauper  spirit  witTiin  himself. 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  237 


The  Dead-Beat  Nuisance. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  "  tramp  nuisance,"  but 
this  is  very  largely  confined  to  the  country.  Men  out  of 
work,  with  no  families  to  tie  them  to  any  particular  spot, 
and  men  demoraUzed  by  army  experiences,  who  would 
not  work  if  they  could,  added  to  the  great  pauperized 
mass  that  is  afloat  at  all  times,  tramp  from  town  to  town, 
and  beg  or  steal— according  to  their  depth  of  degrada- 
tion— to  eke  out  their  miserable  and  meaningless  lives. 
But  there  is  another  nuisance  confined  mainly  to  the 
cities,  of  which  the  country  knows  but  little,  that  grows 
larger  and  larger  with  each  passing  month.  The  dead- 
beat  is  a  product  of  the  town,  and  harder  to  handle  and 
cure  than  the  tramp. 

The  processes  by  which  the  dead-beat  is  made  are 
various.  A  young  man  of  bad  habits  goes  on  to  worse, 
until,  as  business  becomes  slack,  he  is  discharged.  From 
that  day  forth  his  clothes  grow  shabby.  He  begins  to 
borrow  from  those  who  knew  him  in  better  days,  with 
the  promise  and,  at  first,  with  the  purpose  of  paying ; 
but  at  last  he  wears  out  his  friends,  and  begins  to  prey 
upon  society  at  large.  He  has  no  resource  but  borrow- 
ing—borrowing on  the  basis  of  any  story  that  he  can 
invent.  He  wants  money  to  bury  his  wife,  his  child,  to 
feed  a  starving  family,  to  get  to  some  place  where  he  has 
friends.  Many  pretend  to  belong  in  the  South,  and  are 
only  anxious  to  get  back.  Many  in  New  York  have  just 
come  from  the  South,  their  trunks  pawned  for  passage- 
money  and  they  want  to  get  to  Boston.  Some  are  just 
from  a  hospital,  where  they  have  for  a  long  time  been 
ill.  They  have  been  dismissed  without  money,  and 
want  to  reach  their  friends.  The  ingenious  lies  that  are 
peddled  about  New  York,  in  any  single  day,  by  men  and 


238  Every-Day   Topics. 

^vomen  fairly  well  dressed,  for  the  purpose  of  extorting 
from  sympathetic  and  benevolent  people,  sums  varying 
from  one  dollar  to  twenty-five  dollars,  would  make  a  series 
of  narratives  quite  sufficient  to  set  up  a  modern  novelist. 
So  earnestly  and  consistently  are  these  stories  told  that 
it  is  next  to  impossible  to  realize  that  they  are  not  true  ; 
yet  we  suppose  that  the  experience  of  the  general  public, 
like  all  the  private  experience  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted, proves  that  ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred 
they  are  pure,  or  most  impure  inventions. 

The  genteel  female  dead-beat  is,  perhaps,  the  hardest 
to  get  along  with.  She  puts  on  airs  and  dignities.  She 
talks  of  her  former  fortune,  and  of  her  expectations. 
She  has  sources  of  income  at  present  shut  up,  but  sure 
to  be  opened  in  time.  Or  she  has  a  small  income,  terri- 
bly inadequate,  at  best,  but  not  yet  due.  She  wants 
something  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  that  yawns  between 
the  last  dollar  and  the  next.  Sometimes  she  lubricates 
her  speech  with  tears,  but  dignity,  and  great  self-respect- 
fulness, and  a  beautiful  show  of  faith  in  God  and  man, 
are  her  principal  instruments  ;  and  it  takes  a  purse  that 
shuts  like  a  steel  trap  to  withstand  her  appeals.  Some 
of  these  women  selfishly  stay  at  home,  or  in  some  nice 
boarding-house,  and  push  out  their  children,  and  even 
their  young  and  well-educated  daughters,  to  do  their 
borrowing  for  them.  One  whom  wc  know — confessedly 
a  non-attendant  at  any  church — rails  at  the  church  for 
not  supporting  her.  "  Pretty  followers  of  Jesus  Christ!" 
she  thinks  the  church  members  are. 

The  moment  a  man  begins  to  lie  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  money,  or  for  the  purpose  of  excusing  himself 
for  the  non-payment  of  a  debt,  that  moment  he  changes 
from  a  man  to  a  dead-beat.  We  thus  have  dead-beats 
in  business,  as  well  as  out  of  business — men  who  "  shin'' 
from  day  to  day,  and  never  know  in  the  morning  how 


The  Curse  of  Pauperism.  239 

they  are  to  get  through.  They  live  constantly  by  expe- 
dients. Of  course,  it  cannot  take  long  to  reduce  them 
to  dead-beats  of  the  most  disgraceful  stamp. 

A  statement  has  been  made  by  one  of  our  most  truth- 
ful public  men,  that  there  is  in  this  city  a  house  that  har- 
bors the  professional  dead-beat,  and  furnishes  him  with 
romances  to  be  used  in  the  practical  extortion  of  money. 
In  this  house  there  is  a  book  kept,  in  which  are  recorded 
the  names  of  benevolent  men  and  women,  with  all  their 
histories,  traits,  weak  points,  etc.  These  romances  and 
this  knowledge  are  imparted  in  consideration  of  a  cer- 
tain percentage  of  the  money  collected  through  their 
use.  Whether  we  call  this  organized  beggary  or  organ- 
ized robbery,  it  matters  little.  The  fact  itself  is  enough 
to  put  every  man  upon  his  guard,  and  to  make  him  de- 
cline (as  a  fixed  rule,  never  to  be  deviated  from,  except 
in  instances  where  his  own  personal  knowledge  warrants 
him  in  doing  so)  to  give  anything  to  anybody  who  comes 
to  him  with  a  story  and  an  outstretched  palm.  Ninety- 
nine  times  in  a  hundred  the  story  is  a  lie,  and  the  teller 
of  it  a  professional  dead-beat,  who  deserves  to  be  kicked 
from  the  door.  Personally,  we  have  never  known  a  case 
in  New  York  City  of  this  sort  of  begging  or  borrowing 
that  was  not  a  fraud.  The  money  loaned  never  comes 
back,  or  the  beggar  by  some  forgetfulncss  comes  round 
again. 

The  only  safe  way  to  manage  these  importunate  and 
adroit  scamps  is  cither  to  turn  them  o\er  to  the  investi- 
gation of  some  society,  or  to  call  a  policeman.  Fortu- 
nately, there  is  in  a  large  number  of  houses  the  District 
telegraph,  by  the  means  of  v.hich  a  policeman  can  be  sum- 
moned in  a  minute  or  two,  without  the  visitor's  knov.'l- 
edi';e.  In  many  instances  the  policeman  will  know  his 
man  at  tirst  sight.  ICvery  dollar  gi\en  to  these  leeches 
upon   the  social  body  is  a  direct  encouragement  to  the 


240  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

increase  of  the  pauper  population  ;  and,  if  the  matter  is 
still  regarded  carelessly,  we  shall,  in  twenty  years,  be  as 
badly  off  as  Great  Britain  in  this  particular.  What  we 
give  goes  for  rum,  as  a  rule,  and  we  not  only  foster  idle- 
ness, but  we  nourish  vice  and  crime.  We  need  to  make 
a  dead  set  against  tramps  in  the  country  and  dead-beats 
in  the  city,  if  we  wish  to  save  our  children  from  a  reign 
of  pauperism,  only  less  destructive  of  the  prosperity  and 
the  best  interests  of  the  country  than  the  reign  of  war. 


TEMPERANCE. 

Temperance  Education. 

BY  the  vote  of  our  city  Board  of  Education,  on  the 
sixth  of  November  last,  the  English  school-book, 
prepared  by  Benjamin  Ward  Richardson,  called  "  The 
Temperance  Lesson-Book,"  was  adopted  among  the 
text-books  which  our  city  teachers  are  at  liberty  to  use. 
We  hope  there  are  a  good  many  teachers  in  the  city  who 
are  willing  to  take  up  this  book  and  teach  it  to  their 
classes,  for  there  is  no  doubt  that  boys  go  out  into  the 
dangers  of  the  world  lamentably  ignorant  of  those  that 
await  them  among  the  drinking-shops.  We  are  sorry 
that  this  instruction  must  come  into  the  schools  through 
special  text-books,  though  it  is  better  that  it  come  in 
this  way  than  not  at  all.  It  must  come,  at  last,  into  all 
competent  schools,  but  when  that  point  shall  be  reached, 
it  will  come  in  books  on  physiology  and  political  econ- 
omy, in  a  natural  and  perfectly  legitimate  way.  A  spe- 
cial text-book  on  temperance  may  be  well  enough  in  the 
absence  of  the  general  books,  in  which  the  topic  has  its 
appropriate  place  and  space  ;  but  it  is  like  a  text-book 
on  opium-eating.  In  short,  the  incompetence  of  the 
books  on  physiology  and  political  economy  has  forced 
the  friends  of  temperance  into  the  use  of  this  make-shift, 
which  is  surely  a  great  deal  better  than  nothing. 

There   is,  probably,  no  hallucination  so  obstinate  as 
II 


242  Every-Day   Topics. 

that  which  attributes  to  alcoholic  drink  a  certain  virtue 
which  it  never  possessed.  After  all  the  influence  of  the 
pulpit  and  the  press,  after  all  the  warning  examples  of 
drunkenness  and  consequent  destruction,  after  all  the 
testimony  of  science  and  experience,  there  lingers  in  the 
average  mind  an  impression  that  there  is  something  good 
in  alcohol,  even  for  the  healthy  man.  Boys  and  young 
men  do  not  shun  the  wine-cup  as  a  poisoner  of  blood 
and  thought,  and  the  most  dangerous  drug  that  they  can 
possibly  handle  ;  but  they  have  an  idea  that  the  temper- 
ance man  is  a  fogy  or  a  foe  to  a  free  social  life,  whose 
practices  are  ascetic,  and  whose  warnings  arc  to  be 
laughed  at  and  disregarded.  Now,  in  alcohol,  in  its  va- 
rious forms,  we  have  a  foe  to  the  human  race  so  subtile 
and  so  powerful  that  it  destroys  human  beings  by  the 
million,  vitiates  all  the  mental  processes  of  those  who 
indulge  in  it,  degrades  morals,  induces  pauperism  and 
crime  in  the  superlative  degree  when  compared  with  all 
other  causes,  corrupts  the  homes  of  millions  and  makes 
hells  of  them,  and  wastes  the  national  resources  more 
certainly  and  severely  than  war  ;  yet  so  little  have  the 
writers  upon  physiology  and  political  economy  regarded 
this  vital  and  economical  factor  in  human  affairs,  that 
the  friends  of  temperance  have  been  obliged  to  get  up 
and  push  a  special  text-book  upon  it  !  Verily,  they 
must  be  a  brilliant  set  of  men  !  Hereafter  no  text-book 
on  either  physiology  or  political  economy  should  be 
adopted  in  any  school  in  the  country  that  docs  not  com- 
petently treat  of  the  alcohol  question. 

It  is  a  cruel  thing  to  send  a  boy  out  into  the  world  un- 
taught that  alcohol  in  any  form  is  fire  and  will  certainly 
burn  him  if  he  puts  it  into  his  stomach.  It  is  a  cruel 
thing  to  educate  a  boy  in  such  a  way  that  he  has  no  adc- 
(|uate  idea  of  the  dangers  that  beset  his  path.  It  is  a 
mean  thing  to  send  a  boy  out  to  take  his  place  in  so- 


TejHperance.  243 

ciety,  without  understanding  the  relations  of  temperance 
to  his  own  safety  and  prosperity,  and  to  the  safety  and 
prosperity  of  society.  Of  course,  the  great  barrier  be- 
tween the  youth  and  correct  knowledge — the  great  mys- 
tifier  and  misleader — is  respectable  society.  This  is 
practically  saying  to  the  young,  pretty  universally,  that 
wine  is  a  good  thing.  Fine  dinners  are  never  given  with- 
out it,  and  good  men  and  women  drink  it  daily.  They 
do  not  get  drunk,  they  may  be  conscientious  and  religi- 
ous, and  many  of  them  not  only  do  not  regard  wine- 
drinking  as  harmful,  but  as  positively  beneficial.  The 
boy  and  the  young  man  see  all  this,  and  think,  naturally, 
that  those  who  have  experience  in  drink  should  know 
better  about  its  results  than  those  who  let  drink  alone. 

Now,  what  we  want  to  do  in  our  schools  is  to  do  away 
with  the  force  of  a  pernicious  example,  and  a  long-cher- 
ished error,  by  making  the  children  thoroughly  intelli- 
gent on  this  subject  of  alcohol.  They  should  be  taught 
the  natural  effect  of  alcohol  upon  the  processes  of  ani- 
mal life.  1st.  They  should  be  taught  that  it  can  add 
nothing  whatever  to  the  vital  forces  or  to  the  vital  tissues 
— that  it  never  enters  into  the  elements  of  structure,  and 
that,  in  the  healthy  organism,  it  is  always  a  burden  or  a 
disturbing  force.  2d.  They  should  be  taught  that  it  inva- 
riably disturbs  the  operation  of  the  brain,  and  that  the 
mind  can  get  nothing  from  alcohol  of  help  that  is  to  be 
relied  upon.  3d.  They  should  be  taught  that  alcohol 
inflames  the  baser  passions,  blunts  the  sensibilities,  and 
debases  the  feelings.  4th.  They  should  be  taught  that 
an  appetite  for  drink  is  certainly  developed  ])y  those 
who  use  it,  which  is  dangerous  to  life,  destructive  of 
health  of  body  and  peace  of  mind,  and  in  millions  of  in- 
stances ruinous  to  fortune  and  to  all  the  high  interests 
of  the  soul.  5th.  Tliey  should  lie  tau:^lu  that  the  rrinv.; 
and   pauperism  of  society  flow  as  naturally  from  alcoliol 


244  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

as  any  effect  whatever  naturally  flows  from  its  compe- 
tent cause.  6th.  They  should  be  taught  that  drink  is 
the  responsible  cause  of  most  of  the  poverty  and  want 
of  the  world.  So  long  as  six  hundred  million  dollars  are 
annually  spent  for  drink  in  this  country,  every  ounce  of 
which  was  made  by  the  destruction  of  bread,  and  not 
one  ounce  of  which  has  ever  entered  into  the  sum  of 
national  wealth,  having  nothing  to  show  for  its  cost  but 
diseased  stomachs,  degraded  homes,  destroyed  industry, 
increased  pauperism,  and  aggravated  crime,  these  boys 
should  understand  the  facts  and  be  able  to  act  upon 
them  in  their  first  responsible  conduct. 

The  national  wealth  goes  into  the  ground.  If  we  could 
only  manage  to  bury  it  without  having  it  pass  thitherward 
in  the  form  of  a  poisonous  fluid  through  the  inflamed 
l)odies  of  our  neighbors  and  friends,  happy  should  wc  be. 
But  this  great,  abominable  curse  dominates  the  world. 
The  tramp  reminds  us  of  it  as  he  begs  for  a  night's  lodg- 
ing. The  widow  and  the  fatherless  tell  us  of  it  as  they 
ask  for  bread.  It  scowls  upon  us  from  the  hovels  and 
haunts  of  the  poor  everywhere.  Even  the  clean,  hard- 
working man  of  prosperity  cannot  enjoy  his  earnings 
because  the  world  is  full  of  misery  from  drink.  The  more 
thoroughly  we  can  instruct  the  young  concerning  this 
dominating  evil  of  our  time,  the  better  will  it  be  for  them 
and  for  the  world.  Let  us  use  the  "  temperance  lesson- 
book"  wherever  we  may.  Let  parents  demand  that  it 
shall  be  used,  and  particularly  let  all  writers  upon  phy- 
siology and  political  economy  for  schools  take  up  the 
subject  of  alcohol,  and  treat  it  so  candidly,  fully,  and 
ably  that  their  books  shall  no  longer  be  commentaries 
on  their  own  incompetency  to  fill  the  places  whose  func- 
tions they  have  assumed. 


Temperance.  245 


Social  Drinking. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  a  notable  company  of  gentlemen 
assembled  in  the  ample  parlors  of  the  venerable  and 
much  beloved  William  E.  Dodge,  in  this  city,  to  listen  to 
an  essay  by  Judge  Noah  Davis  on  the  relations  of  crime 
to  the  habit  of  intemperate  drinking.  The  company  was 
notable  for  its  respectability,  its  number  of  public  men, 
and  the  further  fact  that  it  contained  many  who  were 
well  known  to  be  wine-drinkers — unattached  to  any  tem- 
perance organization.  No  one  could  have  listened  to 
Judge  Davis's  disclosure  of  the  facts  of  his  subject  with- 
out the  conviction  that  it  was  a  subject  worthy  the  atten- 
tion of  every  philanthropist,  every  political  economist, 
and  every  well-wisher  of  society  present,  whether  tem- 
perance men  or  not.  These  facts,  gathered  from  many 
quarters,  and  from  the  best  authorities,  were  most  signi- 
ficant in  fastening  upon  the  use  of  alcohol  the  responsi- 
bility for  most  of  the  crimes  and  poverty  of  society. 
Some  of  them  were  astounding,  even  to  temperance 
men  themselves,  and  there  were  none  present,  we  pre- 
sume, who  did  not  feel  that  Judge  Davis  had  done  a  rare 
favor  to  the  cause  of  temperance  in  thus  putting  into  its 
service  his  resources  of  knowledge  and  his  persuasive 
voice.  How  many  were  convinced  by  the  facts  detailed 
that  evening  that  they  ought  to  give  up  the  habit  of  so- 
cial drinking,  we  cannot  tell.  The  probabilities  are  that 
none  were  so  moved,  for  this  habit  of  social  drinking,  or 
rather  the  considerations  that  go  with  it,  are  very  des- 
potic. Tlie  idea  that  a  man  cannot  be  hospitable  with- 
out the  offer  of  wine  to  his  guests  is  so  fixed  in  the  minds 
of  most  well-to-do  people  in  this  city  that  they  will  per- 
mit no  consideration  to  interfere  with  it.  People  in  the 
country,  in  the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  have  no  concep- 


246  Every-Day    Topics. 

tion  of  the  despotic  character  of  this  idea.  There  are 
literally  thousands  of  respectable  men  in  New  York  who 
would  consider  their  character  and  social  standing  seri- 
ously compromised  by  giving  a  dinner  to  a  company  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  without  the  offer  of  wine.  It  is  not 
that  they  care  for  it  themselves  particularly.  It  is  quite 
possible,  or  likely,  indeed,  that  they  would  be  glad,  for 
many  reasons,  to  banish  the  wine-cup  from  their  tables, 
but  they  do  not  dare  to  do  it.  It  is  also  true  that  such 
is  the  power  of  this  idea  upon  many  temperance  men 
that  they  refrain  altogether  from  giving  dinners,  lest  their 
guests  should  feel  the  omission  of  wine  to  be  a  hardship 
and  an  outrage  upon  the  customs  of  common  hospitality. 

We  have  called  these  things  to  notice  for  a  special 
reason.  The  company  of  wine-drinkers  who  made  up 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  number  that  filled  Mr.  Dodge's 
rooms  on  the  occasion  referred  to  must  have  been  pro- 
foundly impressed  by  the  revelations  and  arguments  of 
Judge  Davis.  They  could  not  have  failed  to  feel  that  by 
these  revelations  they  had  been  brought  face  to  face  with 
a  great  duty — not,  perhaps,  the  duty  of  stopping  social 
drinking,  and  all  responsible  connection  with  it,  but  the 
duty  of  doing  something  to  seal  the  fountains  of  this 
drink  which  has  contributed  so  largely  to  the  spread  of 
crime  and  poverty  and  misery.  A  man  must,  indeed, 
be  a  brute  who  can  contemplate  the  facts  of  intemper- 
ance without  being  moved  to  remedy  them.  They  are  too 
horrible  to  contemplate  long  at  a  time,  and  every  good 
citizen  must  feel  that  the  world  cannot  improve  until,  in 
some  measure,  the  supplies  of  drink  are  dried  up. 

Our  reason  for  writing  this  article  is  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  there  is  something  about  this  habit  of 
social  wine-drinking  that  kills  the  motives  to  work  for 
temperance  among  those  who  suffer  by  coarse  and  de- 
structive habits  of   drink.     Temperance   is   very  rarely 


Temperance.  247 

directly  labored  for  by  those  who  drink  wine.  As  a  rule, 
with  almost  no  exceptions  at  all,  the  man  who  drinks 
wine  with  his  dinner  does  not  undertake  any  work 
to  keep  his  humble  neighbors  temperate.  As  a  rule, 
too,  the  wine-drinking  clergyman  says  nothing  about 
intemperance  in  his  pulpit,  when  it  is  demonstrably  the 
most  terrible  scourge  that  afflicts  the  world.  There 
seems  to  be  something  in  the  touch  of  wine  that  para- 
lyzes the  ministerial  tongue,  on  the  topic  of  drink. 

We  fully  understand  the  power  of  social  influence  to 
hold  to  the  wine-cup  as  the  symbol  of  hospitality.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  relentless  despotisms  from  which  the 
world  suffers,  and  exactly  here  is  its  worst  result.  We 
do  not  suppose  that  a  very  large  number  of  drunkards 
are  made  by  wine  drunk  at  the  table,  in  respectable 
homes.  There  is  a  percentage  of  intemperate  men 
made  undoubtedly  here,  but  perhaps  the  worst  social 
result  that  comes  of  this  habit  is  its  paralyzing  effect 
upon  reform— its  paralyzing  effect  upon  those  whose 
judgments  are  convinced,  and  whose  wishes  for  society 
are  all  that  they  should  be.  It  is  only  the  total  abstainer 
who  can  be  relied  upon  to  work  for  temperance — who 
ever  has  been  relied  upon  to  work  for  temperance  ;  and 
of  Mr.  Dodge's  company  of  amiable  and  gentlemanly 
wine-drinkers,  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  not  one  will 
join  hands  with  him  in  temperance  labor— with  Judge 
Davis's  awful  facts  sounding  in  his  ears — who  does  not 
first  cut  off  his  own  supplies. 

The  Way  we  Waste. 

One  of  the  facts  brought  prominently  before  the  world 
during  the  last  few  years  is,  that  France  is  rich.  The 
ease  with  which  she  has  recovered  from  the  disastrous 
war  with  Prussia,  and  the  promptness  with  which  she  has 


248  Every-Day    Topia: 

met,  not  only  her  own,  but  Prussia's  enc£dirtv«  expenses 
in  that  war,  have  surprised  all  her  sister  nations.  Every 
poor  man  had  his  hoard  of  ready  money,  which  he  was 
anxious  to  lend  to  the  State.  How  did  he  get  it  ?  How 
did  he  save  it  ?  Why  is  it  that,  in  a  country  like  ours, 
where  wages  are  high  and  the  opportunities  for  making 
money  exceptionally  good,  such  wealth  and  prosperity 
do  not  exist  ?  These  are  important  questions  at  this  time 
with  all  of  us. 

Well,  France  is  an  industrious  nation,  it  is  said.  But 
is  not  ours  an  industrious  nation  too  ?  Is  it  not,  indeed, 
one  of  the  most  hard-working  and  energetic  nations  in 
the  world  ?  We  believe  it  to  be  a  harder-working  nation 
than  the  French,  with  not  only  fewer  holidays,  but  no 
holidays  at  all,  and  with  not  only  less  play,  but  almost 
no  play  at  all.  It  is  said,  too,  that  France  is  a  frugal  na- 
tion. They  probably  have  the  advantage  of  us  in  this ; 
yet,  to  feed  a  laboring  man  and  to  clothe  a  laboring  man 
and  his  family  there  must  be  a  definite,  necessary  ex- 
penditure in  both  countries.  The  difference  in  wages 
ought  to  cover  the  difference  in  expenses,  and  probably 
does.  If  the  American  laborer  spends  twice  as  much, 
or  three  times  as  much,  as  the  French,  he  earns  twice 
or  three  times  as  much  ;  yet  the  American  laborer  lays 
up  nothing,  while  the  French  laborer  and  small  farmer 
have  money  to  lend  to  their  Government.  Their  old 
stockings  are  long  and  are  full.  The  wine  and  the  silk 
which  the  French  raise  for  other  countries  must  be  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  our  exported  gold,  cotton,  and 
breadstuffs,  so  that  they  do  not  have  any  advantage  over 
us,  as  a  nation,  in  what  they  sell  to  other  nations?  We 
shall  have  to  look  farther  than  this  for  the  secret  we  are 
after. 

There  lies  a  book  before  us,  written  by  Dr.  William 
Ilargreaves,   entitled,  "Our  Wasted  Resources."     We 


Temperance.  249 

wish  that  the  politicians  and  political  economists  of  this 
country  could  read  this  book,  and  ponder  well  its  shock- 
ing revelations.  They  are  revelations  of  criminal  waste 
— the  expenditure  of  almost  incalculable  resources  for 
that  which  brings  nothing,  worse  than  nothing,  in  return. 
There  are  multitudes  of  people  who  regard  the  temper- 
ance question  as  one  of  morals  alone.  The  men  who 
drink  say  simply,  "  We  will  drink  what  we  please,  and 
it's  nobody's  business.  You  temperance  men  are  pesti- 
lent fellows,  meddlesome  fellows,  who  obtrude  your  tup- 
penny standard  of  morality  upon  us,  and  we  do  not  want 
it,  and  will  not  accept  it.  Because  you  are  virtuous, 
shall  there  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale  ?"  Very  well,  let 
us  drop  it  as  a  question  of  morality.  You  will  surely 
look  at  it  with  us  as  a  question  of  national  economy  and 
prosperity  ;  else,  you  can  hardly  regard  yourselves  as 
patriots.  We  have  a  common  interest  in  the  national 
prosperity,  and  we  can  discuss  amicably  any  subject  on 
this  common  ground. 

France  produces  its  own  wine  and  drinks  mainly 
cheap  wine.  It  is  a  drink  which,  while  it  does  them  no 
good,  according  to  the  showing  of  their  own  physicians, 
does  not  do  them  harm  enough  to  interfere  with  their  in- 
dustry. Their  drinking  wastes  neither  life  nor  money  as 
ours  does,  and  they  sell  in  value  to  other  countries  more 
than  they  drink  themselves.  During  the  year  1870,  in 
our  own  State  of  New  York,  there  were  expended  by 
consumers  for  liquor  more  than  one  hundred  and  six  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  a  sum  which  amounted  to  nearly  two- 
thirds  of  all  the  wages  paid  to  laborers  in  agriculture  and 
manufactures,  and  to  nearly  twice  as  much  as  the  re- 
ceipts of  all  the  railroads  in  the  State,  the  sum  of  the 
latter  being  between  sixty-eight  and  sixty-nine  millions. 
The  money  of  our  people  goes  across  the  bar  all  the  time 
faster  tlian  it  is  crowded  into  the  wickets  of  all  the  rail- 
1 1^ 


2  50  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

road  stations  of  the  State,  and  where  does  it  go  ?  What 
is  the  return  for  it  ?  Diseased  stomachs,  aching  heads, 
discouraged  and  slatternly  homes,  idleness,  gout,  crime, 
degradation,  death.  These,  in  various  measures,  are  ex- 
actly what  we  get  for  it.  We  gain  of  that  which  is  good, 
nothing — no  uplift  in  morality,  no  increase  of  industry, 
no  accession  to  health,  no  growth  of  prosperity.  Our 
State  is  full  of  tramps,  and  every  one  is  a  drunkard. 
There  is  demoralization  everywhere,  in  consequence  of 
this  wasteful  stream  of  fiery  fluid  that  constantly  flows 
down  the  open  gullet  of  the  State. 

But  our  State  is  not  alone.  The  liquor  bill  of  Penn- 
sylvania during  1870  was  more  than  sixty-five  millions 
of  dollars,  a  sum  equal  to  one-third  ®f  the  entire  agri- 
cultural product  of  the  State.  Illinois  paid  more  than 
forty-two  millions  and  Ohio  more  than  fifty-eight  mil- 
lions. Massachusetts  paid  more  than  twenty-five  mil- 
lions, a  sum  equal  to  five-sixths  of  her  agricultural  pro- 
ducts, while  the  liquor  bill  of  Maine  was  only  about  four 
millions  and  a  quarter.  Mr.  Hargreaves  takes  the  fig- 
ures of  Massachusetts  and  Maine  to  show  how  a  prohib- 
itory law  does,  after  all,  reduce  the  drinking ;  but  it  is 
not  our  purpose  to  argue  this  question. 

What  we  desire  to  show  is,  that,  with  an  annual  ex- 
penditure of  $600,000,000  for  liquors  in  the  United 
States — and  all  the  figures  we  give  are  based  upon  offi- 
cial statistics — it  should  not  be  wondered  at  that  the 
people  are  poor.  Not  only  thi^  vast  sum  is  wasted  ;  not 
only  the  capital  invested  is  diverted  from  good  uses,  and 
all  the  industry  involved  in  production  taken  from  bene- 
ficent pursuits,  but  health,  morality,  respectability,  in- 
dustry and  life  are  destroyed.  Sixty  thousand  Americans 
annually  lie  down  in  a  drunkard's  grave.  It  were  better 
to  bring  into  the  field  and  shoot  down  sixty  thousand  of 
our  young  men  every  year,  than  to  have  them  go  through 


Tempera  nee.  251 

all  the  processes  of  disease,  degradation,  crime,  and  de- 
spair through  which  they  inevitably  pass. 

With  six  hundred  millions  of  dollars  saved  to  the 
country  annually,  how  long  would  it  take  to  make  these 
United  States  rich  not  only,  but  able  to  meet,  without 
disturbance  and  distress,  the  revulsions  in  business  to 
which  all  nations  are  liable  ?  Here  is  a  question  for  the 
statesman  and  the  politician.  Twenty-five  years  of  ab- 
solute abstinence  from  the  consumption  of  useless,  and 
worse  than  useless,  liquors,  would  save  to  the  country 
fifteen  billions  of  dollars,  and  make  us  the  richest  na- 
tion on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Not  only  this  sum — be- 
yond the  imagination  to  comprehend — would  be  saved, 
but  all  the  abominable  consequences  of  misery,  disease, 
disgrace,  crime,  and  death,  that  would  flow  from  the 
consumption  of  such  an  enormous  amount  of  poisonous 
fluids,  would  be  saved.  And  yet  temperance  men  are 
looked  upon  as  disturbers  and  fanatics  !  And  we  are 
adjured  not  to  bring  temperance  into  politics  !  And 
this  great  transcendent  question  of  economy  gets  the  go- 
by, while  we  hug  our  little  issues  for  th'c  sake  of  party 
and  of  office  !     Do  we  not  deser\e  adversity? 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Regulated  Production. 

TN  a  recent  number  of  The  Popidar  Science  Monthly^ 
*■  we  find  an  important  and  suggestive  article  from 
the  pen  of  O.  B.  Bunce,  which  attempts  to  enforce  the 
policy  of  "  regulated  production."  There  is  no  question 
that  the  popular  doctrine  that  the  supply  is  always  reg- 
ulated by  the  demand,  and  that  demand  will  always 
elicit  supply,  does  not  work  with  the  requisite  nicety 
or  sensitiveness.  A  demand  springs  up,  let  us  say, 
for  paper.  Immediately  hundreds  of  mills  start  into 
action,  each  anxious  to  do  its  utmost  to  meet  that  de- 
mand with  supply.  They  are  operated  night  and  dav, 
and  before  they  can  feel  the  subsidence  of  the  demand, 
the  market  is  glutted.  Then  the  mills  are  reduced  to 
half  time,  or  the  gates  are  shut  down  altogether.  Thou- 
sands of  workmen  and  workwomen  are  either  reduced  in 
wages,  or  deprived  of  all  wages  ;  and  then,  of  course, 
comes  distress.  They  cease  to  be  consumers  of  any- 
thing but  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  and  thus  every  in- 
terest with  which  they  hold  relations  is  made  to  suffer 
with  them.  They  buy  no  cloth,  they  live  in  the  cheapest 
quarters,  they  drop  all  luxuries,  and  their  over-produc- 
tion becomes,  in  every  respect,  a  popular  disaster.  The 
demand  brought  the  supply,  but  the  supply  for  a  year 
was  produced  in  six  months. 


Domestic  Economy.  253 

We  all  remember  with  what  opposition  the  introduc- 
tion of  labor-saving  machinery  was  met  in  England, 
The  laboring  classes  had  an  instinct  that  there  was  some- 
where in  it  mischief  for  them.  In  this  country  less  op- 
position has  been  manifested,  because  the  labor  market, 
until  within  a  few  years,  has  not  been  over-supplied.  In 
the  development  of  a  new  realm  there  has  been  enough 
for  everybody  to  do.  It  was  not  long  ago  in  this  coun- 
try that  the  instincts  of  labor  began  to  apprehend  trou- 
ble from  over-production.  The  labor-saving  machinery 
was  all  invented,  however,  and  in  use,  and  the  only  rem- 
edy that  seemed  to  offer  was  a  reduction  of  the  hours 
of  labor— the  shortening  of  the  day's  work.  This  could 
not  work  well,  because  it  was  not  universal,  and  it  was 
a  clumsy  resort  in  every  respect.  No  manufacturer, 
paying  a  fixed  sum  for  eight  hours'  work,  could  compete 
with  another  who  paid  only  the  same  sum  for  ten,  eleven 
and  twelve  hours'  work.  The  matter  got  into  the  hands 
of  demagogues,  guilds  and  societies  have  endeavored  to 
control  the  capitalists,  and  there  has  grown  out  of  it  a 
long  train  of  mischiefs. 

Of  this  one  fact,  all  men  at  this  time  have  come  to  be 
well  aware,  viz.,  that  we  have  the  machinery  and  the 
labor  for  producing  more  of  the  ordinary  materials  re- 
quired in  civilized  life  than  we  can  sell.  The  further 
fact,  to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  that  "the  law 
of  demand  and  supply  "  works  clumsily,  and  often  dis- 
astrously, when  left  to  itself,  is  also  pretty  definitely 
apprehended.  There  would  seem,  therefore,  to  be  no 
alternative  policy  but  that  of  "  regulated  production." 
That  this  is  possible  in  limited  spheres  has  already  been 
abundantly  proved.  There  is  at  this  time  in  Massachu- 
setts a  society  of  paper-makers  who  are  intelligently  and 
successfully  "regulating"  the  production  of  their  mills. 
They  understand  that  if  they  run  their  mills  day  and 


254  Every -Day    Topics. 

night  they  will  produce  paper  in  such  quantities  as  to 
raise  the  price  of  stock  and  reduce  the  price  of  paper, 
as  well  as  glut  the  market.  So,  by  keeping  the  supply 
as  nearly  even  with  the  demand  as  possible,  they  manage 
to  run  their  mills  half  time — that  is,  only  in  the  day- 
time— and  to  make  a  profit  on  which  they  and  their  em- 
ployes can  live.  This  is  what  may  be  called  "  regulated 
production  ;  "  and  we  know  of  no  reason  why  the  policy 
may  not  be  adopted  by  every  manufacturing  interest  in 
the  country. 

The  Government,  of  course,  can  have  no  voice  in  this 
regulation,  but  it  can  be  of  incalculable  assistance  in 
rendering  it  intelligent.  It  can  ascertain — approximately, 
at  least — how  much  paper,  in  all  its  varieties,  how  much 
muslin,  how  many  shoes,  how  much  woollen  cloth,  how 
many  sewing-machines,  reapers,  ploughs,  hoes,  shovels, 
how  much  cutlery,  how  many  hats,  are  made  and  sold 
in  a  single  year.  It  can  also  ascertain  the  producing 
capacity  of  the  respective  groups  of  manufactories,  and 
thus  reduce  to  the  simplest  sum  in  arithmetic  the  prob- 
lem of  regulated  production.  This  sum,  intelligently 
ciphered  out,  nothing  remains  but  honest  co-operation, 
free  and  frank  intercommunication,  and  fraternal  loyalty. 
Our  American  Silk  Association,  for  instance,  with  its 
printed  organ,  its  regular  meetings,  its  thorough  intelli- 
gence in  all  matters  relating  to  the  supply  of  the  raw 
material  and  the  demand  for  the  manufactured  product, 
can  so  regulate  the  production  of  silk  that  the  whole  in- 
terest can  be  kept  in  a  healthy  condition. 

Mr.  Bunce  cites  the  combination  of  the  coal  companies, 
which  recently  exploded,  with  such  disastrous  results,  as 
a  perfectly  legitimate  one,  provided  it  had  been  entered 
into  in  order  to  prevent  an  over-production  of  coal.  We 
heartily  coincide  in  this  opinion,  and  presume  to  add 
that  if  this  had  been  the  only  motive  of  the  combination 


Domestic  Economy.  255 

it  would  not  have  exploded.  The  combination  to  pre- 
vent an  over-production  is  not  only  legitimate — it  is  nec- 
essary. The  attempt  to  force  prices  and  profits  on  coal, 
in  order  to  sustain  a  speculation  in  railroad  stocks,  or  to 
bolster  up  roads  that  have  no  legitimate  basis,  was  what 
burst  the  combination.  Such  evils  will  always  correct 
themselves,  though,  in  the  correction,  they  inflict  great 
disasters.  The  consumers  of  Pennsylvania  cannot  suffer 
without  inflicting  injury  upon  the  manufacturers  of  New 
England  and  New  York,  who  get  their  coal  for  less  than 
it  costs  to  produce  it.  Regulated  production,  with  all 
that  it  promises,  means,  however,  contentment  witli 
modest  profits — a  toning  down  of  the  old  greed  for  sud- 
den and  enormous  wealth.  It  means  also  the  entrance 
upon  untried  fields  of  enterprise,  increased  intelligence, 
and  a  development  of  skill.  A  limitation  in  quantity 
will  bring  an  improvement  in  quality,  every  man  trying 
his  best  to  lead  the  market,  or  to  make  his  market  sure. 
We  know  that  when  a  manufacturing  interest  is  enor- 
mous, like  that  of  iron  or  cotton  cloth,  it  is  difficult  to 
associate  the  capital  involved;  but  it  can  be  done — ought 
to  be  done — must  be  done. 

The  Chinese  in  California. 

We  have  all  had  our  laugh  over  Bret  Harte's  "  Heathen 
Chinee,"  and  particularly  over  the  passage  which  de- 
clares "  We  are  ruined  by  Chinese  cheap  labor,"  and 
which  also  contains  the  record  of  Ah  Sin's  discomfiture 
at  the  hand  of  Bill  Nye,  for  the  crime  of  holding  more 
aces  in  his  sleeve  than  his  antagonist.  Bill  Nye's  course 
of  reasoning,  and  the  "  remedial  agency"  which  he  so 
promptly  adopted  in  the  case  cited,  form  the  finest  sat- 
ire on  the  California  enemies  of  the  Chinaman  that  was 
ever  uttered.     W'e  have  all  read,  too,  '•  Miss  Malony  on 


256  Every-Day    Topics. 

the  Chinese  Question,"  which,  though  given  in  charac- 
teristic prose,  is  not  inferior  in  its  way  to  Mr.  Harte's 
poem.  These  two  satirical  and  humorous  productions 
have  in  them  a  vast  amount  of  truth  and  common  sense. 
In  the  latter,  Mrs.  Dodge  touches  the  question  of  na- 
tional prejudice,  and  in  the  former,  Mr.  Harte  deals 
with  the  question  of  industrial  and  political  economy. 

A  few  months  ago  we  published  two  articles  on  the 
Chinese  in  California.  One  of  them,  written  by  a  lady, 
was  a  record  of  personal  experience  in  the  employment 
of  Chinese  servants.  The  other  treated  of  the  general 
subject  of  Chinese  immigration,  in  its  social,  industrial 
and  political  aspects.  We  have  waited  for  a  reply  to 
these  communications,  liecause  there  are  always  two 
sides  to  every  question  ;  and  we  supposed  that  the 
Chinese  would  have  friends  enough  who  were  willing  to 
speak  a  just,  if  not  a  kind  word  for  them.  We  have 
waited  up  to  the  time  of  writing  this  article,  in  vain,  and 
we  propose  to  say  a  word  for  ourselves — such  a  word  as 
a  man  may  say  on  general  principles,  with  perhaps  an 
inadequate  knowledge  of  facts. 

The  Irish  immigrant — we  mean  only  the  ignorant  and 
laboring  Irish  immigrant — has  always  hated  any  race  and 
any  nationality  that  has  been  brought  into  competition 
with  him  in  common  labor.  The  negro  has  always  been 
the  Irishman's  bete  noir,  quite  independently  of  his  color. 
It  seems  to  be  natural  for  an  Irishman  to  hate  a  negro, 
and  the  hatred  comes  entirely  from  the  fact  that  he  re- 
gards him  as  a  competitor  in  common  labor.  Here,  in 
New  York,  we  have  had  a  small  specimen  of  the  hatred 
of  an  Irishman  for  an  Italian — not  that  the  Italian  has 
base  blood  in  him,  or  is  his  enemy  in  matters  of  religion, 
for  the  Italian  is  his  Catholic  brother,  and  the  fellow- 
countryman  of  his  Pope.  He  is  simply  jealous  of  him 
as  a  laborer  ;  and  the  Italians  would  only  need  to  settle 


Domestic  Economy.  257 

in  New  York  in  sufficiently  large  numbers  to  develop 
this  jealousy  into  violent  and  disgraceful  manifestations. 
We  state  these  facts  simply  in  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  the  Irishman  would  naturally  regard  the  importa- 
tion of  1 50,000  Chinese  laborers  at  San  Francisco.  With 
his  nature,  and  his  adoption  of  the  idea,  either  that  he 
has  a  right  to  all  the  common  labor  that  is  to  be  done, 
or  that  any  other  common  laborer  will  interfere  with  his 
prosperity,  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  look  upon 
Chinese  immigration  with  anything  but  disfavor.  This 
disfavor  he  would  manifest  in  the  way  in  which  he  mani- 
fests it  toward  the  negro  and  the  Italian.  "  We  are 
ruined  by  Chinese  cheap  labor,"  he  would  say,  and, 
therefore,  he  would  "  go  for  that  heathen  Chinee." 

So,  whatever  of  Irish  opposition  there  may  be  in  San 
Francisco  to  the  importation  of  the  Chinaman,  and 
whatever  of  maltreatment  the  latter  may  suffer  from 
Irish  boots  and  Irish  influence,  are  sufficiently  explained. 
The  Irishman  would  be  most  unlike  himself  if  he  failed 
to  look  upon  the  Chinaman  precisely  as  he  looks  upon 
the  African  and  the  laboring  Italian.  He  does  not  op- 
pose him  with  brutal  weapons  because  he  is  a  heathen, 
for  he  would  treat  the  Catholic  Italian  in  the  same  way, 
under  the  same  circumstances  ;  but  because  he  and  the 
Chinaman  have  the  same  thing  to  dispose  of,  viz.:  com- 
mon labor. 

There  is  still  another  influence  which  is  naturally  hos- 
tile to  the  Chinaman.  This  influence  is  not  so  powerful 
here  as  it  would  be  England.  We  allude  to  the  influence 
of  the  trades  unions.  The  members  of  these  societies 
are,  by  their  institutions  and  policy,  necessarily  the  foes 
of  any  body  of  laborers  who  remain  outside  of  their  lines 
and  beyond  their  control.  It  is  not  necessary  that  this 
body  of  laborers  should  be  Chinese.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary that  they  should  be  laborers  who  choose  to  be  inde- 


258  Every- Day   Topics. 

pendent  of  them.  This  fact  is  illustrated  every  day  in 
the  year  in  New  York.  All  the  persuasives  are  employed 
and  all  the  penalties  are  imposed  which  can  be  used 
with  safety  to  keep  men  from  working  in  "  wild  shops," 
whose  proprietors  choose  to  manage  their  own  business. 
The  abuse  of  the  tongue,  social  ostracism,  and,  in  too 
many  instances,  violence,  are  resorted  to,  to  bring  and 
hold  men  within  their  own  ranks.  It  is  not  the  Irishman, 
the  Italian,  the  Chinaman,  or  the  negro,  that  the  trades 
unions  care  for,  as  such,  but  it  is  the  independent  la- 
borer, who  works  at  whatever,  and  at  whatever  wages, 
he  may  choose.  Now  it  is  impossible  that  these  organi- 
zations should  regard  with  favor  the  importation  of  an 
alien  population,  possessing  rare  ingenuity  and  adap- 
tiveness  to  a  wide  circle  of  industry,  yet  entirely  outside 
of  their  possible  control. 

We  are  not  upon  the  ground,  and  it  is  impossible  for 
lis  to  judge  how  much  of  the  enmity  to  the  Chinese  that 
reigns  at  San  Francisco  is  attributable  to  the  two  causes 
that  have  been  mentioned.  That  enough  of  it  to  make 
these  Chinese  very  uncomfortable  and  unsafe  is  to  be 
traced  to  these  causes,  nobody  can  doubt,  though  he 
may  live  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  If  it  were  all 
wiped  out,  we  fancy  that  the  "  heathen  Chinee"  would 
be  very  comfortable  in  California. 

It  is  tossed  in  the  teeth  of  the  Chinaman  that  he  is  a 
heathen,  that  he  is  an  opium-eater,  that  he  sends  his 
money  home,  that  he  does  not  bring  his  wife  and  family 
with  him,  but  does  bring  prostitutes  ;  that  he  is  filthy, 
that  the  quarters  he  inhabits  are  breeders  of  disease, 
that  he  is  a  gambler,  etc.  It  is  a  fair  question  to  ask,  in 
the  face  of  these  charges,  whether  the  treatment  meted 
out  to  this  heathen  has  been  such  that  he  sees  a  marked 
superiority  of  Christianity  over  heathenism.  About  how 
impressive  is  the  Christian  lesson  imparted  to  a  heatheq 


Domestic  Economy.  259 

by  the  unrebukcd  toe  of  a  hoodlum's  boot  ?  What  would 
a  heathen  naturally  think  of  a  Christianity  that  greets 
him  with  a  howl  on  his  landing,  and  follows  him  with  dis- 
criminating laws  and  regulations,  and  public  contempt, 
and  private,  unhindered  abuse  during  all  the  time  of  his 
residence  ?  The  charge  of  heathenism  is  just  a  trifle  ab- 
surd. And,  again,  if  the  Chinaman  smokes  opium,  who 
drinks  whiskey  ?  If  he  has  prostitutes,  whose  unrebuked 
example  does  he  follow  ?  If  he  sends  money  home,  it 
is  precisely  what  the  Irish  have  been  doing,  in  the  most 
filial,  brotherly  and  praiseworthy  way  for  the  last  cen- 
tury. If  he  comes  to  California  without  his  wife,  he  does 
simply  what  tens  of  thousands  of  Californians  have  done 
since  immigration  into  the  State  began.  If  he  is  a  gam- 
bler, how  long  is  it  since  gambling  went  out  of  fashion 
in  California  ?  If  his  quarters  are  filthy,  why  does  not 
the  health  board,  or  why  do  not  the  city  authorities,  at- 
tend to  their  duties  ? 

We  ask  these  questions  not  because  we  suppose  they 
decide  anything,  but  because,  in  our  ignorance,  we 
would  like  to  know.  In  the  East,  the  prejudice  against 
our  heathen  brother  John  in  California  seems  a  little  un- 
reasonable, and  we  want  more  light.  We  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  welcoming  all  other  nationalities.  We  are 
strangely  insensitive  to  the  importation  of  thousands  of 
criminals  and  scamps  and  scalawags  from  Europe,  and 
we  cannot  yet  feel  sure  that  the  importation  of  the 
Chinaman  is  not  a  better  thing,  on  the  whole.  He  cer- 
tainly is  industrious,  he  minds  his  own  business,  and,  so 
far  as  we  have  seen  him  here,  he  docs  an  honest  day's 
work,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  a  good  many 
Christian  laborers  whom  we  have  around  us.  Of  one 
thing,  at  least,  we  are  sure.  No  people  can  hold  a  large 
body  of  men  in  contempt,  and  regard  them  with  hatred, 
and  treat  them  like  beasts,  without  demoralizing  them- 


26o  Every-Day   Topics. 

selves.  That  thing  has  been  tried,  and  tried  in  this 
country,  too.  The  Californians  cannot  afford  to  have  the 
Chinaman  with  them,  unless  they  can  treat  him  like  a 
man.  They  must  either  do  this,  or  the  Chinaman  must 
go.  To  hold  a  fellow-man  in  fixed  contempt,  to  spit  upon 
him  unrebuked,  simply  because  he  is  of  another  race,  or 
is  supposed,  in  the  competitions  of  life,  to  interfere  with 
one's  prosperity,  is  simply  to  lapse  from  Christianity  into 
barbarism.  And  that,  in  its  own  time,  will  produce  re- 
sults in  which  the  Chinese  will  not  be  interested,  except 
as  observers. 


SOCIAL  FACTS,  FORCES  AND  REFORMS. 

Acting  under  Excitement. 

THERE  is  great  fear,  on  the  part  of  some  amiable 
persons  who  write  for  the  public,  lest,  in  certain 
excited  movements  of  reform,  there  should  be  those  who 
will  take  steps  for  which  they  will  be  sorry.  They  argue, 
from  this,  that  it  is  not  best  to  have  any  excitement  at 
all,  and  especially  that  nothing  should  be  done  under 
excitement.  It  so  happens,  however,  that  the  path  of 
progress  has  always  been  marked  by  sudden  steps  up- 
ward and  onward.  There  are  steady  growth  and  steady 
going,  it  is  true,  but  the  tendency  to  rut-making  and 
routine  are  so  great  in  human  nature,  that  it  is  often  only 
by  wide  excitements  that  a  whole  community  is  lifted 
and  forwarded  to  a  new  level.  Men  often  get  into  the 
condition  of  pig-iron.  They  pile  up  nicely  in  bars.  They 
are  in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation.  They  certainly 
lie  still,  and  though  there  is  vast  capacity  in  them  for 
machinery,  and  cutlery,  and  agricultural  implements — 
though  they  contain  measureless  possibilities  of  spindles 
and  spades — there  is  nothing  under  heaven  but  fire  that 
can  develop  their  capacity  and  realize  their  possibilities. 
There  are  communities  that  would  never  do  anything 
but  rot,  except  under  excitement.  A  community  often 
gets  into  a  stolid,  immobile  condition,  which  nothing 
but  a  public  excitement  can  break  up.     This  condition 


262  Every-Day   Topics. 

may  relate  to  a  single  subject,  or  to  many  subjects.  It 
may  relate  to  temperance,  or  to  a  church  debt.  Now,  it 
is  quite  possible  that  a  man  under  excitement  will  do  the 
thing  that  he  has  always  known  to  be  right,  and  be  sorry 
for  it  or  recede  from  it  afterward ;  but  the  excitement 
was  the  only  power  that  would  ever  have  started  him  on 
the  right  path,  or  led  him  to  stop  in  the  wrong  one.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  say  that  it  would  be  a  great  deal  better 
for  a  drunkard,  coolly,  after  quiet  deliberation  and  a  ra- 
tional decision,  to  resolve  to  forsake  his  cups  than  to 
take  the  same  step  under  the  stimulus  of  social  excite- 
ment and  the  persuasions  of  companionship  and  fervid 
oratory;  but  does  he  ever  do  it?  Sometimes,  possibly, 
but  not  often.  Without  excitement  and  a  great  social 
movement,  very  little  of  temperance  reform  has  ever 
been  effected.  Men  are  like  iron  :  to  be  moulded  they 
must  be  heated  ;  and  to  say  that  there  should  be  no  ex- 
citement connected  with  a  great  reform,  or  that  a  reform 
is  never  to  be  effected  through  excitement,  is  to  ignore 
the  basilar  facts  of  human  nature  and  human  history. 

At  the  present  time  there  is  a  great  temperance  reform 
in  progress.  Men  are  taking  the  temperance  pledge  by 
tens  of  thousands.  They  go  around  with  glad  faces  and 
with  ribbons  in  their  button-holes.  They  sing  their 
songs  of  freedom  from  the  power  that  has  so  long  and  so 
cruelly  enslaved  them.  It  is  said,  of  course  :  "  Oh,  this 
will  not  last.  It  is  only  a  nine  days'  wonder.  Many  of 
these  people  are  now  drinking  in  secret,  and  soon  the 
most  of  them  will  be  back  in  their  old  courses."  The 
most  of  them — possibly.  It  is  not  probable,  however, 
that  the  most  of  them  will  recede.  Suppose  half  of  them 
remain  true  to  their  pledges  ;  does  not  that  pay?  We 
should  have  had  none  of  them  without  the  excitement, 
and  to  have  had  a  great  mass  of  brutal  men,  who  have 
long  disgraced  and    abused   their  wives  and  children, 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      263 

sober  for  a  month,  or  for  six  months,  was  surely  a  good 
thing.  It  was  at  least  a  ray  of  sunshine  in  a  great  multi- 
tude of  dark  lives.  The  point  we  make,  is,  that  the  al- 
ternative of  a  reform  through  popular  excitement  is  no 
reform  at  all.  And  we  make  the  further  point  that  a 
man  who  will  not  sympathize  with  a  reform  because  of 
the  excitement  that  accompanies  it,  is,  ninety-nine  times 
in  a  hundred,  a  man  who  does  not  sympathize  with  the 
reform  on  any  ground  ;  and  the  hundredth  man  is  usu- 
ally an  impracticable  ass. 

Let  us  take  this  matter  of  paying  church  debts  by 
what  has  become  known  as  the  Kimball  method.  A 
church  builds  a  house  of  worship.  It  costs  more  than 
the  original  estimate,  or  some  important  members  have 
failed  in  the  expected  or  pledged  subscription,  or,  worse 
than  all,  debt  has  been  incurred  with  the  eyes  open  and 
by  intent.  It  has  been  carried  along  for  years,  the 
whole  organization  groaning  with  the  burden.  To  a  few 
it  has  become  intolerable.  They  see  the  church  dwin- 
dling. They  see  strangers  frightened  away  by  this  skele- 
ton in  the  closet ;  they  see  their  pastor  growing  gray  and 
careworn  or  utterly  breaking  down,  and,  knowing  that 
nothing  stands  in  the  way  of  the  usefulness  and  happi- 
ness of  their  church  but  the  debt,  they  cast  about  for 
help.  We  will  say  that  in  most  instances  the  church  is 
able  to  pay  the  debt,  provided  every  man  will  do  his 
duty  ;  but  it  so  happens  that  every  man  will  not  do  his 
duty,  except  under  some  sort  of  social  excitement,  which 
Mr.  Kimball  or  his  helper  supplies.  Now,  it  is  simply  a 
question  between  paying  a  debt  and  not  paying  it  at  all. 
It  is  not  practically  a  question  between  paying  in  one 
way  or  another. 

This  method  has  been  tried  many  times,  with  the  most 
gratifying  success.  In  one  brief  half-day,  by  means  of 
everybody  doing  his  part  under  the   influence   of  elo- 


264  Every-Day   Topics. 

quence  and  social  excitement,  debts  have  been  lifted 
and  churches  made  free.  Churches  and  congregations 
have  sung  and  wept  over  their  success,  and  with  the  joy 
that  came  of  duty  done  and  sacrifice  made  for  the  Mas- 
ter. Just  here  steps  in  the  critic.  He  has  known  noth- 
ing of  the  burden  that  the  church  has  carried.  He  knows 
nothing  of  the  happiness  that  has  come  from  the  sacri- 
fices made,  or  of  the  hopes  that  have  been  born  of  them. 
He  only  knows  that  it  is  probable  that  men  and  women, 
under  the  excitement  of  the  occasion,  have  subscribed 
in  some  instances  more  than  they  could  afford  to  sub- 
scribe. Therefore,  in  the  opinion  of  the  critic,  a  public 
excitement  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  payment  of  a 
church  debt  is  wrong.  The  critic  does  not  take  into 
account  the  fact  that  without  the  excitement  the  debt 
not  only  would  not,  but  could  not  be  paid.  He  does  not 
take  into  account  the  fact  that  the  willing  part  of  the 
church  has  been  most  unjustly  burdened  with  this  debt 
for  years,  and  that  nothing  under  heaven  but  an  excite- 
ment will  stir  the  unwilling  part  of  the  church  to  do  its 
duty.  Of  course  he  does  not  take  into  account  the  fur- 
ther fact  that  no  sacrifice  is  too  great  to  the  man  who 
appreciates  the  sacrifice  that  has  been  made  for  him, 
and  for  which  he  can  only  make  a  poor  return,  at  best. 

To  the  critics  of  this  method  of  paying  church  debts 
who  object  to  it  on  account  of  its  profanation  of  the  Sab- 
bath, no  better  reply  can  be  made  than  that  of  one  who 
found  occasion  to  defend  himself  in  their  presence. 
"  We  are  told,"  said  he,  "  that  it  was  permissible  in  the 
olden  time  for  a  man  to  relieve  his  ass  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  when  the  animal  had  fallen  into  a  ditch,  and  I  am 
only  trying  to  relieve  a  multitude  of  men  and  women 
who  have  been  asses  enough  to  stumble  into  a  church 
debt."     The  answer  is  a  good  one,  and  justifies  itself. 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      265 


The  Cure  for  Gossip. 

Everybody  must  talk  about  something.  The  poor 
fellow  who  was  told  not  to  talk  for  the  fear  that  people 
would  find  out  that  he  was  a  fool,  made  nothing  by  the 
experiment.  He  was  considered  a  fool  because  he  did 
not  talk.  On  some  subject  or  another,  everybody  must 
have  something  to  say,  or  give  up  society.  Of  course, 
the  topics  of  conversation  will  relate  to  the  subjects  of 
knowledge.  If  a  man  is  interested  in  science,  he  will 
talk  about  science.  If  he  is  an  enthusiast  in  art,  he  will 
talk  about  art.  If  he  is  familiar  with  literature,  and  is 
an  intelligent  and  persistent  reader,  he  will  naturally 
put  forward  literary  topics  in  his  conversation.  So  with 
social  questions,  political  questions,  religious  questions. 
Out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth  spcaketh. 
That  of  which  the  mind  is  full— that  with  which  it  is  fur- 
nished—will come  out  in  expression. 

The  very  simple  reason  why  the  world  is  full  of  gossip, 
is,  that  those  who  indulge  in  it  have  nothing  else  in  them. 
They  must  interest  themselves  in  something.  They 
know  nothing  but  what  they  learn  from  day  to  day, 
in  intercourse  with,  and  observation  of,  their  neighbors. 
What  these  neighbors  do — what  they  say — what  happens 
to  them  in  their  social  and  business  affairs — what  they 
wear — these  become  the  questions  of  supreme  interest. 
The  personal  and  social  life  around  them — this  is  the 
book  under  constant  perusal,  and  out  of  this  comes  that 
pestiferous  conversation  which  we  call  gossip.  The 
world  is  full  of  it  ;  and  in  a  million  houses,  all  over  this 
country,  nothing  is  talked  of  but  the  personal  affairs  of 
neighbors.  All  personal  and  social  movements  and  con- 
cerns are  arraigned  before  this  high  court  of  gossip,  are 
retailed  at  every  fireside,  are  sweetened  with  approval  or 
12 


266  Every-Day   Topics. 

embittered  by  spite,  and  are  gathered  up  as  the  com- 
mon stock  of  conversation  by  the  bankrupt  brains  that 
have  nothing  to  busy  themselves  with  but  tittle-tattle. 

The  moral  aspects  of  gossip  are  bad  enough.  It  is  a 
constant  infraction  of  the  Golden  Rule  ;  it  is  full  of  all 
uncharitableness.  No  man  or  woman  of  sensibility 
likes  to  have  his  or  her  personal  concerns  hawked  about 
and  talked  about ;  and  those  who  engage  in  this  work 
are  meddlers  and  busybodies  who  are  not  only  doing 
damage  to  others — are  not  only  engaged  in  a  most  un- 
neighborly  office — but  are  inflicting  a  great  damage  upon 
themselves.  They  sow  the  seeds  of  anger  and  animosity 
and  social  discord.  Not  one  good  moral  result  ever 
comes  out  of  it.  It  is  a  thoroughly  immoral  practice, 
and  what  is  worst  and  most  hopeless  about  it  is,  that 
those  who  are  engaged  in  it  do  not  see  that  it  is  immoral 
and  detestable.  To  go  into  a  man's  house,  stealthily, 
when  he  is  away  from  home,  and  overhaul  his  papers, 
or  into  a  lady's  wardrobe  and  examine  her  dresses,  would 
be  deemed  a  very  dishonorable  thing ;  but  to  take  up  a 
man's  or  a  woman's  name,  and  besmirch  it  all  over  with 
gossip — to  handle  the  private  affairs  of  a  neighbor  around 
a  hundred  firesides — why,  this  is  nothing  !  It  makes  con- 
versation. It  furnishes  a  topic.  It  keeps  the  wheels  of 
society  going. 

Unhappily  for  public  morals,  the  greed  for  personal 
gossip  has  been  seized  upon  as  the  basis  of  a  thrifty 
traffic.  There  are  newspapers  that  spring  to  meet  every 
popular  demand.  We  have  agricultural  papers,  scien- 
tific papers,  literary  papers,  sporting  papers,  religious 
papers,  political  papers,  and  papers  devoted  to  every 
special  interest,  great  and  small,  that  can  be  named, 
and,  among  them,  papers  devoted  to  personal  gossip. 
The  way  in  which  the  names  of  private  men  and  women 
are  handled  by  caterers  for  the  public  press,  the  way  in 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Reforms.      2C7 

which  their  movements  and  affairs  are  heralded  and  dis- 
cussed, would  be  supremely  disgusting  were  it  not  morfl 
disgusting  that  these  papers  find  greedy  readers  enough 
to  make  the  traffic  profitable.  The  redeeming  thing 
about  these  papers  is,  that  they  are  rarely  malicious 
except  when  they  are  very  low  down — that  they  season 
their  doses  with  flattery.  They  find  their  reward  in 
ministering  to  personal  vanity. 

What  is  the  cure  for  gossip  ?  Simply,  culture.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  gossip  that  has  no  malignity  in  it. 
Good-natured  people  talk  about  their  neighbors  because, 
and  only  because,  they  have  nothing  else  to  talk  about. 
As  we  write,  there  comes  to  us  the  picture  of  a  family  of 
young  ladies.  We  have  seen  them  at  home,  we  have 
met  them  in  galleries  of  art,  we  have  caught  glimpses  of 
them  going  from  a  bookstore,  or  a  library,  with  a  fresh 
volume  in  their  hands.  When  we  meet  them,  they  are 
full  of  what  they  have  seen  and  read.  They  are  brim- 
ming with  questions.  One  topic  of  conversation  is  drop- 
ped only  to  give  place  to  another,  in  which  they  arc 
interested.  We  have  left  them,  after  a  delightful  hour, 
stimulated  and  refreshed  ;  and  during  the  whole  hour  not 
a  neighbor's  garment  was  soiled  by  so  much  as  a  touch. 
They  had  something  to  talk  about.  They  knew  some- 
thing, and  wanted  to  know  more.  They  could  listen  as 
well  as  they  could  talk.  To  speak  freely  of  a  neighbor's 
doings  and  belongings  would  have  seemed  an  imperti- 
nence to  them,  and,  of  course,  an  impropriety.  They 
had  no  temptation  to  gossip,  because  the  doings  of  their 
neighbors  formed  a  subject  very  much  less  interesting 
than  those  which  grew  out  of  their  knowledge  and  their 
culture. 

And  this  tells  the  whole  story.  The  confirmed  gossip 
is  always  either  malicious  or  ignorant.  The  one  variety 
needs  a  change  of  heart  and  the  other  a  change  of  pas- 


268  Every-Day   Topics. 

ture.  Gossip  is  always  a  personal  confession  either  of 
malice  or  imbecility,  and  the  young  should  not  only 
shun  it,  but  by  the  most  thorough  culture  relieve  them- 
selves from  all  temptation  to  indulge  in  it.  It  is  a 
low,  frivolous,  and  too  often  a  dirty  business.  There  are 
country  neighborhoods  in  which  it  rages  like  a  pest. 
Churches  are  split  in  pieces  by  it.  Neighbors  are  made 
enemies  by  it  for  life.  In  many  persons  it  degenerates 
into  a  chronic  disease,  which  is  practically  incurable. 
Let  the  young  cure  it  while  they  may. 

The  Philosophy  of  Reform. 

It  is  the  habit  of  men  who  regard  themselves  as 
'*  radicals,"  in  matters  relating  to  reform,  to  look  upon 
the  Christian  and  the  Christian  Church  as  "  conserv- 
ative," when,  in  truth,  the  Christian  is  the  only  reformer 
in  the  world  who  can  lay  a  sound  claim  to  radicalism. 
The  Church  has  lived  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  and 
will  live  until  the  end  of  time,  because  it  holds  the  only 
radical  system  of  reform  in  existence,  if  for  no  other 
reason.  The  greatness  of  the  founder  of  Christianity  is 
conspicuously  shown  in  his  passing  by  social  institu- 
tions as  of  minor  and  inconsiderable  importance,  and 
fastening  his  claims  upon  the  individual.  The  reform 
of  personal  character  was  his  one  aim.  With  him,  the 
man  was  great  and  the  institution  small.  There  was 
but  one  way  with  him  for  making  a  good  society,  and 
that  was  by  the  purification  of  its  individual  materials. 
There  can  be  nothing  more  radical  than  this  ;  and  there 
never  was  anything — there  never  will  be  anything— to 
take  the  place  of  it.  It  is  most  interesting  and  in- 
structive to  notice  how,  one  by  one,  every  system  of 
reform  that  has  attempted  to  "cut  under"  Christian- 
ity has  died  out,  leaving  it  a  permanent  possessor  of  the 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      269 

field.  The  reason  is  that  Christianity  is  radical.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  getting  below  it.  It  is  at  the  root  of 
all  reform,  because  it  deals  with  men  individually. 

We  suppose  that  it  is  a  matter  of  great  wonder  to 
some  of  our  sceptical  scientists  that  Christianity  can  live 
for  a  day.  To  them  it  is  all  a  fable,  and  they  look  with 
either  contempt  or  pity  upon  those  who  give  it  their 
faith  and  their  devoted  support.  If  they  had  only  a 
little  of  the  philosophy  of  which  they  believe  themselves 
to  possess  a  great  deal,  they  would  see  that  no  system 
of  religion  can  die  which  holds  within  itself  the  only 
philosophical  basis  of  reform.  A  system  of  religion 
which  carries  motives  within  it  for  the  translation  of  bad 
or  imperfect  character  into  a  form  and  quality  as  divine 
as  anything  we  can  conceive,  and  which  relics  upon  this 
translation  for  the  improvement  of  social  and  political 
institutions,  is  a  system  which  bears  its  credentials  of 
authority  graven  upon  the  palms  of  its  hands.  There 
can  be  nothing  better.  Nothing  can  take  the  place  of 
it.  Until  all  sorts  of  reformers  are  personally  reformed 
by  it,  they  are  only  pretenders  or  mountebanks.  They 
are  all  at  work  upon  the  surface,  dealing  with  matters 
that  are  not  radical. 

It  is  most  interesting  and  instructive,  we  repeat,  to 
observe  how  all  the  patent  methods  that  have  been 
adopted  outside  of,  or  in  opposition  to,  Christianity,  for 
the  reformation  of  society,  have,  one  after  another,  gone 
to  the  wall,  or  gone  to  the  dogs.  A  dream,  and  a  few 
futile  or  disastrous  experiments,  are  all  that  ever  come 
of  them.  Societies,  communities,  organizations,  melt 
away  and  are  lost,  and  all  that  remains  of  them  is  their 
history.  Yet  the  men  who  originated  them  fancied  that 
they  wore  radicals,  while  they  never  touched  the  roots 
either  of  human  nature  or  human  society.  The  most 
intelligent  of  those  who    abjure   Christianity  have    seen 


270  Every-Day   Topics. 

all  this,  and  have  been  wise  enough  not  to  undertake 
to  put  anything  in  its  place.  They  content  themselves 
with  their  negations,  and  leave  the  race  to  flounder  along 
as  it  will. 

We  suppose  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder  to  such  men  as 
these  that  Mr.  Moody  and  Mr.  Sankey  can  obtain  such 
a  following  as  they  do.  They  undoubtedly  attribute  it 
to  superstition  and  ignorance,  but  these  reformers  are 
simply  eminent  radicals  after  the  Christian  pattern, 
who  deal  with  the  motives  and  means  furnished  them 
by  the  one  great  radical  reformer  of  the  world — Jesus 
Christ  himself.  They  are  at  work  at  the  basis  of 
things.  To  them,  politics  arc  nothing,  denominations 
are  nothing,  organizations  are  nothing,  or  entirely  sub- 
ordinate. Individual  reform  is  everything.  After  this, 
organizations  will  take  care  of  themselves.  No  good  so- 
ciety can  possibly  be  made  out  of  bad  materials,  and 
when  the  materials  are  made  good,  the  society  takes  a 
good  form  naturally,  as  a  pure  salt  makes  its  perfect 
crystal  without  superintendence.  They  are  proving, 
day  by  day,  what  all  Christian  reformers  have  been 
proving  for  eighteen  centuries,  viz.,  that  Christian  re- 
form, as  it  relates  to  individual  life  and  character,  pos- 
sesses the  only  sound  philosophical  basis  that  can  be 
found  among  reforms.  Christian  reform,  with  all  its 
motives  and  methods,  is  found  to  be  just  as  vital  to-day 
as  it  ever  was.  It  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever.  There  are  a  great  many  dogmas  of  the  Church 
whose  truth,  or  whose  importance,  even  if  true,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  prove  ;  but  the  great  truths,  that  human- 
ity is  degraded,  and  can  only  be  elevated  and  purified 
by  the  elevation  and  purification  of  its  individual  con- 
stituents, are  evident  to  the  simplest  mind.  Men  know 
that  they  are  bad,  and  ought  to  be  better ;  and  a  mo- 
tive— or  a  series  of  motives  to    reformation,  addressed 


Social  Facts y  Forces  and  Reforms.      271 

directly  to  this  consciousness — is  not  long  in  achieving 
results.  The  radicalism  of  Christianity  holds  the  secret 
of  revivals,  of  the  stability  of  the  Church,  of  the  growth 
and  improvement  of  Christian  communities.  All  things 
that  are  true  are  divine.  There  can  be  no  one  thing 
that  is  more  divinely  true  than  any  other  thing  that  is 
true.  Christianity  is  divine,  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  it  holds  and  monopolizes  the  only  radical  and  phil- 
osophical basis  of  reform.  The  criticisms  of  all  those 
who  ignore  these  facts  are  necessarily  shallow  and  un- 
worthy of  consideration — ^just  as  shallow  and  just  as 
worthless,  as  the  dogmatism  inside  the  Church  which  at- 
tributes the  power  of  Christianity  to  those  things  which 
are  not  sources  of  power  at  all.  Christianity  must  live 
and  triumph  as  a  system  of  reform,  because  it  goes  to 
the  roots  of  things,  and  because,  by  so  doing,  it  proves 
itself  to  be  divinely  and  eternally  true. 

The  Reconstruction  of  National  Morality. 

A  time  of  war  is  always  a  time  of  corruption.  The 
earnest  public  is  absorbed  by  public  questions  and  pub- 
lic movements.  Values  are  shifting  and  unsettled.  Con- 
tracts are  made  in  haste,  and  their  execution  escapes,  in 
the  distractions  of  the  time,  that  scrutiny  and  criticism 
which  they  secure  in  calmer  periods.  There  are  ten 
thousand  chances  for  undetected  frauds  at  such  a  time 
which  do  not  exist  in  the  reign  of  peace.  All  the  selfish 
elements  of  human  nature  spring  into  unwonted  activity, 
and  the  opportunities  for  large  profits  and  sudden  wealth 
are  made  the  most  of  This  is  the  case  in  all  climes  and 
countries.  America  does  not  monopolize  the  greed  and 
mendacity  of  the  world.  Even  in  despotic  Russia,  with 
Siberia  in  the  near  distance  and  harsher  punishments 
closer  at  hand,  the  contractor  cannot  keep  his  fingers 


2/2  Every-Day   Topics. 

from  his  country's  gold.  Rank  growths  of  extravagance 
spring  into  Hfe  ;  artificial  wants  are  nourished  ;  the  old 
economies  go  out,  and  the  necessities  of  a  new  style  of 
living  force  men  into  schemes  of  profit  from  which  they 
would  shrink  under  other  circumstances.  The  public 
conscience  becomes  debauched,  and  the  public  tone  of 
morality  debased. 

Upon  results  like  these  the  uncorrupted  men  look 
with  dismay  or  despair.  Where  is  it  all  to  end  ?  The 
nation  is  sick  from  heart  to  hand  ;  how  can  it  be  cured  ? 
The  answer  is  now,  happily,  not  far  to  seek.  A  ring  of 
rogues  gets  the  metropolis  into  its  hands.  They  rule  it 
in  their  own  interests.  Their  creatures  are  in  every 
office.  They  reach  their  power  out  upon  the  State. 
With  uncounted  money,  every  dollar  of  which  they 
have  stolen,  they  control  elections,  bribe  legislators,  and 
buy  laws  that  shall  protect  them  and  their  plunder. 
They  build  club-houses,  summer  resorts,  steamboats- 
all  that  can  minister  to  their  sensual  delights,  and  find 
multitudes  to  fawn  upon  their  power  and  pick  up  the 
crumbs  of  patronage  that  fall  from  their  tables.  But 
the  day  of  reckoning  comes  to  them,  and  the  boastful 
leader  who  defiantly  asks,  "  What  are  you  going  to  do 
about  it?"  runs  away.  All  these  men  are  wanderers, 
self-exiled.  Nay,  they  are  prisoners  to  all  intents  and 
purposes — shut  out  from  the  only  world  which  has  any 
interest  for  them.  There  is  not  a  man  in  Sing  Sing  who 
is  not  nearer  home,  who  is  any  more  shut  away  from 
home,  than  Tweed  and  his  fellow-conspirators.  Cor- 
ruption, once  the  courted  goddess  of  New  York  City,  is 
not  to-day  in  the  fashion.  So  much,  at  least,  has  been 
done. 

If  we  look  out  upon  the  country,  we  shall  find  the 
process  of  reformation  going  on.  A  gigantic  interest, 
baleful  in  every  aspect,  pits  itself  against  the  demands 


Social  Facts^  Forces  and  Reforms.       273 

of  the  Government  for  revenue.  Men  who  have  held 
good  positions  in  business  circles  stand  confessed  as 
cheats,  tricksters,  scoundrels.  The  whiskey  rings  that 
have  defrauded  the  Government  in  untold  millions  are 
falling  to  pieces  under  the  steady  pressure  of  exposure, 
and  stand  revealed  in  all  their  shameful  shamelessness. 
They  appear  before  the  bar  of  law  and  public  opinion 
and  plead  guilty  in  squads — almost  in  battalions.  And 
still  the  work  goes  on.  Still,  in  the  nature  and  tendency 
of  things,  it  must  go  on,  till  all  these  festering  centres  of 
corruption  are  cauterized  and  healed.  So  with  the  Canal 
Ring,  and  so  with  corporation  rings  of  all  sorts  all  over 
the  country.  The  tendencies  of  the  time  are  toward 
reform.  The  attention  of  the  country  is  crowded  back 
from  illegitimate  sources  of  profit  upon  personal  econ- 
omy and  healthy  industry.  It  is  seen,  at  least,  that  cor- 
ruption does  not  pay,  and  that,  in  the  end,  it  is  sure  of 
exposure. 

There  is  another  set  of  evils  that  have  grown  naturally 
out  of  the  influences  of  the  war.  Petty  peculations  have 
abounded.  Wages  have  been  reduced,  and  those  em- 
ployers in  responsible  positions,  whose  style  of  living 
has  been  menaced  or  rendered  impossible  by  the  reduc- 
tion of  their  means,  have  been  over-tempted  to  steal,  or 
to  attempt  speculation  with  moneys  held  and  handled  in 
trust.  Thief  after  tliicf  is  exposed,  many  of  them  men 
whose  honesty  has  been  undoubted,  until  all  who  are 
obliged  to  trust  their  interest  in  the  hands  of  others 
tremble  with  apprehension.  But  this  is  one  of  those 
things  which  will  naturally  pass  away.  Every  exposure 
is  a  terrible  lesson — not  only  to  employers,  but  to  the 
employed.  The  former  will  be  careful  to  spread  fewer 
temptations  in  the  way  of  their  trusted  helpers,  by  hold- 
ing them  to  a  closer  accountability,  and  the  latter  will 
learn  that  every  step  outside  the  bounds  of  integrity  is 


274  Every -Day   Topics. 

sure  of  detection  in  the  end  ;  that  the  path  of  faithful- 
ness is  the  only  possible  path  of  safety  and  of  peace. 
This  is  not  the  highest  motive  to  correct  action,  it  is 
true,  but  it  will  answer  for  those  who  are  tempted  to 
steal,  and  who  are  not  actuated  by  a  better. 

It  will  be  evident  that  we  are  not  alarmed  or  dis- 
couraged by  the  exposure  of  rascality  in  high  places 
and  low,  which  greet  our  eyes  in  almost  every  morning's 
newspaper.  These  exposures  are  the  natural  product 
of  healthy  reaction,  the  preliminary  steps  toward  the 
national  cure.  So  long  as  fraud,  peculation,  and  defec- 
tion exist,  the  faster  these  exposures  come  the  better. 
Every  exposure  is  a  preacher  of  righteousness,  an  evan- 
gel of  reform.  The  more  dangerous  all  rascality  and 
infidelity  to  trust  can  be  made  to  appear,  the  better  for 
society.  In  any  cutaneous  disease,  the  more  we  see  of 
it  the  better.  It  is  before  it  appears,  or  when  it  is  sunk 
from  the  surface,  that  it  is  most  dangerous  to  the  sources 
of  life  and  the  springs  of  cure. 

Double  Crimes  and  Oxe-Sided  Laws. 

A  little  four-page  pamphlet  has  recently  fallen  into 
our  hands,  entitled  "  Crimes  of  Legislation."  Who  wrote 
it,  or  where  it  came  from,  we  do  not  know  ;  but  it 
reveals  a  principle  so  important  that  it  deserves  more 
elaborate  treatment  and  fuller  illustration.  These  we 
propose  to  give  it,  premising,  simply,  that  the  word 
"  crimes"  is  a  misnomer,  as  it  involves  a  malicious  de- 
sign which  does  not  exist.  "Mistakes  in  Legislation" 
would  be  abetter  title. 

There  are  two  classes  of  crimes.  The  first  needs  but 
one  actor.  When  a  sneak-thief  enters  a  hall  and  steals 
and  carries  off  an  overcoat,  or  a  man  sits  in  his  count- 
ing-room and  commits  a  forgery,  or  a  ruffian  knocks  a 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.       275 

passenger  down  and  robs  him,  he  is  guilty  of  a  crime 
which  does  not  necessarily  need  a  confederate  of  any 
sort.  The  crime  is  complete  in  itself,  and  the  single 
perpetrator  alone  responsible.  The  second  class  of 
crimes  can  only  be  committed  by  the  consent  or  active 
aid  of  a  confederate.  When  a  man  demands,  in  contra- 
vention of  the  usury  laws,  an  exorbitant  price  for  the 
use  of  money,  his  crime  cannot  be  complete  without  the 
aid  of  the  man  to  whom  he  lends  his  money.  When  a 
man  sells  liquor  contrary  to  the  law,  it  involves  the  con- 
sent and  active  co-operation  of  the  party  to  whom  he 
makes  the  sale.  He  could  not  possibly  break  the  law 
without  aid.  The  same  fact  exists  in  regard  to  a  large 
number  of  crimes.  They  are  two-sided  crimes,  and 
necessarily  involve  two  sets  of  criminals. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  which  absolutely  dictate 
discriminative  legislation  that  shall  cover  all  the  guilty 
parties,  our  laws  have,  with  great  uniformity,  been  one- 
sided for  the  double  crime  as  well  as  for  the  single. 
The  man  who  lends  money  at  usurious  rales  is  ac- 
counted the  only  guilty  party  in  the  transaction.  The 
borrower  may  have  come  to  him  with  a  bribe  in  his 
hand  to  induce  him  to  break  the  law — may  have  been 
an  active  partner  in  the  crime — and  still  the  lender  is 
the  only  one  accounted  guilty  and  amenable  to  punish- 
ment. The  man  who  sells  intoxicating  liquors  contrary 
to  law  could  never  sell  a  glass,  and  would  never  buy 
one  to  sell,  l:)ut  for  the  bribe  outhcld  in  the  palm  of 
his  customer  ;  yet  the  law  lays  its  hand  only  upon  the 
seller. 

Now,  if  \vc  look  into  the  history  of  these  one-sided 
laws  for  double  crimes,  we  shall  learn  that  they  are 
precisely  those  which  we  find  it  almost,  or  quite,  im- 
possible to  enforce  ;  and  it  seems  never  to  have  been 
suspected  that,  so  long  as  they  are  one-sided,  there  is 


276  Every-Day    Topics. 

a  fatal  flaw  in  them.  Our  legislators  have  seemed  to 
forget  that,  if  liquor  is  not  bought,  it  will  not  be  sold  ; 
that  if  usurious  rates  for  money  are  not  tendered,  they 
cannot  possibly  be  exacted  ;  that  if  irregular  or  contin- 
gent fees  are  not  offered  to  the  prosecutors  of  real  or 
doubtful  claims,  the  prosecutors  are  without  a  motive  to 
irregular  action.  So  powerful  is  the  sympathy  of  con- 
federacy in  crime  between  these  two  parties,  although  the 
confederacy  is  not  recognized  by  law,  that  it  has  been 
almost  impossible  to  get  convictions.  The  rumbuycr 
will  never,  if  he  can  help  it,  testify  against  the  rum- 
seller.  Unless  the  victim  of  the  usurer  is  a  very  mean 
man,  he  will  keep  his  transactions  to  himself.  It  is 
really,  among  business  men,  a  matter  of  dishonor  for  a 
borrower  to  resort  to  the  usury  law  to  escape  the  pay- 
ment of  rates  to  which  he  had  agreed,  and  it  ought  to 
be. 

Usury  is  a  double  crime,  if  it  is  a  crime  at  all.  Rum- 
selling  contrary  to  law  is  a  double  crime,  and  no  pro- 
hibitory law  can  stand,  or  even  ought  to  stand,  that 
does  not  hold  the  buyer  to  the  same  penalties  that  it 
holds  the  seller.  The  man  who  bribes  the  seller  to 
break  the  law  is  as  guilty  as  the  seller,  and  if  the  law 
does  not  hold  him  to  his  share  of  accountability,  the 
law  cannot  be  respected  and  never  ought  to  be  respected. 
It  is  a  one-sided  law,  an  unfair  law,  an  unjust  law.  Men 
who  are  not  able  to  reason  it  out,  as  we  are  endeavoring 
to  do  here,  feel  that  there  is  something  wrong  about  it  ; 
and  it  is  safe  to  predict  that,  until  the  moral  sentiment 
of  a  State  is  up  to  the  enactment  of  a  two-sided  law  that 
shall  cover  a  two-sided  crime,  no  prohibitory  law  will 
accomplish  the  object  for  which  it  was  constituted. 

Prostitution  is  one  of  the  most  notable,  and  one  of 
the  most  horrible  of  the  list  of  double  crimes.  It  is 
always  a   double  crime   by    its  nature  ;  yet,  how  one- 


Social  Facts^  Forces  and  Reforms.      277 

sided  arc  the  laws  which  forbid  it !  Is  a  poor  girl,  who 
has  not  loved  wisely,  and  has  been  forsaken,  the  only 
one  to  blame  when  beastly  men  press  round  her  with 
their  hands  full  of  bribes  enticing  her  into  a  life  of  in- 
famy ?  Yet  she  alone  is  punished,  while  they  go  scot 
free.  And  yet  we  wonder  why  prostitution  is  so  preva- 
lent, and  why  our  laws  make  no  impression  upon  it ! 
Some  ladies  of  our  commonwealth  have  protested 
against  a  proposed  law  for  some  sort  of  regulation  of 
prostitution — putting  it  under  medical  surveillance.  And 
they  are  right.  If  men  who  frequent  houses  of  prosti- 
tution are  permitted  to  go  forth  from  them  to  scatter 
their  disease  and  their  moral  uncleanness  throughout 
a  pure  community,  then  let  the  women  alone.  In  a 
case  like  this,  a  mistake  of  legislation  may  amount  to  a 
crime.  We  do  not  object  to  medical  surveillance,  but 
it  should  touch  both  parties  to  the  social  sin.  No  law 
that  does  not  do  this  will  ever  accomplish  anything 
toward  the  cure  of  prostitution.  We  have  some  respect 
for  Justice  when  she  is  represented  blindfold,  but  when 
she  has  one  eye  open — and  that  one  winking — she  is 
a  monster. 

Our  whole  system  of  treating  double  crimes  with  one- 
sided laws,  our  wliole  silly  policy  of  treating  one  party 
to  a  double  crime  as  a  fiend,  and  the  other  party  as  an 
angel  or  a  baby,  has  been  not  only  inefficient  for  the 
end  sought  to  be  obtained,  but  disastrous.  The  man 
who  offers  a  bribe  to  another  for  any  purpose  which  in- 
volves the  infraction  of  a  law  of  the  State  or  nation  is, 
and  must  be,  an  equal  partner  in  the  guilt  ;  and  any  law 
which  leaves  liim  out  of  tlic  transaction  is  utterly  un- 
just on  the  face  of  it.  If  it  is  wrong  to  sell  liquor,  it  is 
wrong  to  buy  it,  and  wrong  to  sell  because,  and  only  be- 
cause, it  is  wrong  to  buy.  If  prostitution  is  wrong,  it  is 
wrong  on  both  sides,  and  he  who  offers  a  bribe  to  a  weak 


2/8  Every-Day  Topics. 

woman,  without  home  or  friends  or  the  means  of  life,  to 
break  the  laws  of  the  State,  shares  her  guilt  in  equal 
measure.  Law  can  never  be  respected  that  is  not  just. 
No  law  can  be  enforced  that  lays  its  hand  upon  only 
one  of  the  parties  to  a  double  crime.  No  such  law  ever 
was  enforced,  or  ever  accomplished  the  purpose  for 
which  it  was  enacted  ;  and  until  we  are  ready  to  have 
double  laws  for  double  crimes,  we  stultify  ourselves  by 
our  unjust  measures  to  suppress  those  crimes.  Our  wit- 
nesses are  all  accomplices,  the  moral  sense  of  the  com- 
munity is  blunted  and  perverted,  and  those  whom  we 
brand  as  criminals  look  upon  our  laws  with  contempt 
of  judgment  and  conscience. 

The  Better  Times. 

We  were  much  impressed  by  a  recent  remark,  attribu- 
ted to  Governor  Morgan,  that  under  certain  circum- 
stances, which  were  mentioned,  but  which  it  is  not 
necessary  to  recall,  he  did  not  see  why  the  American 
people  could  not  enjoy  a  period  of  prosperity  lasting  ten 
or  twelve  years.  That  which  impressed  us  was  the  rec- 
ognition, by  an  experienced  business  head,  of  the  peri- 
odicity of  prosperity  in  this  country.  We  go  headlong 
into  business  from  a  period  of  depression,  run  a  certain 
round,  and  then  down  we  go  again,  to  rise  and  fall  in- 
definitely in  the  same  way.  That  has  been  the  history 
of  American  business  as  far  back  as  we  can  remember. 
The  question  never  seems  to  arise  whether  this  periodicity 
is  necessary,  or  can  be  avoided  ;  but  every  time  we  work 
up  to  a  crash — to  a  great  and  wide-spread  financial  dis- 
aster— from  which  we  slowly  recover,  again  to  repeat 
the  old  mistakes,  and  receive  the  accustomed  punish- 
ment. 

Is  this  lamentable  periodicity  necessary  ?     We  cann(-t 


Social  Facts^    Forces  and  Reforms.      279 

believe  that  it  is.  When  we  suffer  as  a  community,  it 
is  because,  as  a  community,  we  have  done  wrong.  When 
legitimate  business  is  properly  done,  and  not  improperly 
overdone  ;  when  credits  are  not  illegitimately  extended, 
and  speculation  is  not  indulged  in  ;  when  public  and  cor- 
porate trusts  are  managed  without  corruption ;  when 
true  economy  is  practised  in  public  and  private  life,  a 
great  financial  calamity,  or  crash,  is  simply  impossible. 
What  Governor  Morgan,  or  any  other  wise  and  observ- 
ing man,  foresees  as  one  of  the  consequences  of  the 
revival  of  business,  is  a  development  of  the  spirit  of 
speculation,  a  growth  of  fictitious  values,  an  over-pro- 
duction of  manufactures,  a  multiplication  of  middle- 
men, a  wide  extension  of  credit,  a  feverish  thirst  for 
large  profits,  a  stimulation  of  extravagant  habits,  an  in- 
creasing love  of  luxury.  There  is  but  one  natural  and 
inevitable  end  to  all  these,  and  that  is  disaster.  It 
comes  just  as  naturally  as  death  follows  a  competent 
poison.  There  is  no  mystery  about  it  whatever  ;  and 
the  strange  thing  is,  that  a  nation  of  men  are  so  much 
like  a  nation  of  children  that  it  will  not  learn. 

The  better  times  for  which  we  have  waited  so  long 
that  we  had  almost  become  hopeless,  seem  to  have 
dawned  at  last.  Business  has  revived.  The  spindles 
whirl  again  ;  the  merchant  has  his  customers  ;  once  more 
that  which  is  produced  finds  a  ready  market  ;  and  once 
more  there  is  labor  for  the  workman,  and  bread  and 
clothing  and  shelter  for  the  labor.  After  the  terrible 
lesson  we  have  received,  it  is  a  good  time  to  talk  about 
the  future.  Are  we  to  go  on  again  in  the  old  way,  and 
fill  up,  within  a  limited  period  of  years,  the  old  measure 
of  foolishness,  and  tumble  again  into  the  old  conse- 
([uences  ? 

It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  do  so.  We  have, 
from  sheer  necessity,  begun  to  be  economical.     Let  us 


2  So  Every -Day   Topics. 

continue  so.  Let  us  build  smaller  houses  ;  let  us  furnish 
them  more  modestly  ;  let  us  live  less  luxuriously  ;  let  us 
tune  all  our  personal  and  social  life  to  a  lower  key.  We 
have  bravely  begun  reform  in  public  and  corporate  af- 
fairs. Let  us  continue  this,  and  vigilantly  see  to  it  that 
our  trusts  are  placed  in  competent  and  honest  hands. 
We  are  committed  to  a  reform  in  the  civil  service — a 
reform  which  will  extinguish  the  trade  of  politics  that 
has  done  so  much  to  debauch  and  impoverish  the  coun- 
try. Let  us  see  to  it  that  this  reform  is  thoroughly  ef- 
fected. Our  cobble-houses  have  tumbled  about  our  ears  ; 
let  us  not  rebuild  them.  Our  speculations  lie  in  ruin, 
with  the  lives  and  fortunes  they  have  absorbed.  Our 
fictitious  values  have  been  extinguished  ;  let  us  not  try 
to  relight  the  glamour  that  made  them.  Our  long  cred- 
its and  our  depreciated  currency  have  wrought  incalcu- 
lable evils  ;  let  us  not  continue  them.  Let  us  cease  to 
deal  in  paper  lies,  and  pay  in  gold  our  honest  debts. 
Above  all,  let  us  be  content  with  modest  gains,  cease 
trying  to  win  wealth  in  a  day,  and  get  something  out  of 
life  besides  everlasting  work  and  worry.  Fully  one-half 
of  our  wants  are  artificial,  and  these  terrible  struggles 
for  money  are  mainly  for  the  supply  of  wants  that  we 
have  created. 

A  great  many  people,  as  the  better  times  come  on, 
will  pull  from  their  hiding-places  the  worthless  securi- 
ties, or  insecurities,  which  they  were  once  tempted  to 
buy,  and  which  now  are  not  worth  the  paper  they  were 
printed  on.  They  will  lament  that  they  had  not  invested 
their  money  in  what  they  knew  to  be  safe,  rather  than  in 
that  which  seemed  to  be  safe,  but  which  promised  a 
large  return.  The  worthless  railroad  bonds  and  manu- 
facturing stocks  that  now  lumber  the  coffers  of  the  rich 
and  poor  alike  will  serve  as  mementoes  of  the  popular 
folly,  and  as  grave  and  impressive  lessons  for  the  future. 


Social  Facts y  Forces  and  Reforms.      281 

Those  who  invested  for  income  are  without  their  income, 
and  regret,  when  it  is  too  late,  that  they  were  tempted 
by  a  large  promised  percentage  to  forsake  the  path  of 
safety.  The  Government  bond  went  abroad  for  a  buyer, 
and  is  good  to-day.  The  railroad  bond  was  bought  at 
home,  and  is  good  for  nothing. 

And  now,  when  money  is  beginning  to  be  made  again, 
is  the  time  for  a  resolve  to  be  also  made  that  something 
shall  always  be  sacrificed  to  security — that  for  safety's 
sake,  the  large  return  shall  be  renounced,  and  the  mod- 
est return  accepted.  The  time  for  building  railroads  on 
bonds,  for  the  benefit  of  rings  and  directors  and  con- 
tractors, we  trust  has  passed  away.  The  time  for  mul- 
tiplying machinery  beyond  the  wants  of  the  country  has 
also  passed,  else  our  people  are  quite  foolish  enough  to 
deserve  all  the  disaster  that  will  follow  a  recurrence  to 
the  old  policy.  Let  every  man  try  to  do  a  safe,  legiti- 
mate business,  live  within  his  income,  and  invest  his 
profits  in  genuine  securities,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
our  prosperity  may  not  be  permanent. 

Indications  of  Progress. 

To  the  eye  of  experience,  there  is  always  something 
pathetic  in  the  hopeful  and  self-confident  energy  with 
which  a  young  man  of  generous  impulses  and  purposes 
strikes  out  into  life.  With  faith  in  God,  faith  in  him- 
self, faith  in  human  progress,  faith  in  the  influences  and 
instrumentalities  of  reform,  he  goes  to  his  work  deter- 
mined upon  leaving  the  world  a  great  deal  better  than 
he  found  it.  He  throws  himself  into  his  enterprises  with 
zeal  and  abandon,  and,  after  twenty  or  twenty-five  years, 
wakes  up  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  world  has 
not  been  very  greatly  improved  by  his  efforts,  and  that 
it  is  not  very  likely  to  be  improved  by  them.     He  has 


282  Every -Day   Topics. 

arrested  no  great  tide  of  iniquity,  he  has  not  enlightened 
the  hiding-places  of  ignorance,  he  has  not  resuscitated  the 
dead,  he  has  not  righted  the  wrong.  If  not  utterly  dis- 
couraged, he  goes  on  with  his  work  because  he  loves  it, 
because  it  seems  to  be  his  duty  to  do  so,  or,  because,  after 
all  his  lack  of  success,  his  faith  in  progress  refuses  to  be 
killed,  though  "  the  good  time  coming  "  slinks  away  from 
his  vision,  among  the  shadows  that  brood  over  the  future. 
To  help  such  men  as  these,  and  all  those  who  profess 
to  believe  that  the  world  is  growing  worse,  rather  than 
better,  it  is  well,  once  in  a  while,  to  call  attention  to  the 
indications  of  progress.  The  first  that  present  them- 
selves to  one  engaged  in  literary  pursuits  are  those  re- 
lating to  the  moral  tone  of  literature.  How  often  we  are 
called  upon  in  these  days  to  apologize  for  the  indecencies 
of  the  older  writers !  How  threadbare  has  become  the 
plea  that  they  represented  their  time  !  We  do  not  doubt 
that  Rabelais  could  once  have  been  tolerated  in  what  was 
regarded  as  decent  society,  but  no  one  can  read  him 
now  without  a  handkerchief  at  his  nose.  Sterne  was 
very  funny  and  he  was  very  nasty — so  nasty  that  no 
father  of  to-day  would  dare  to  read  him  to  his  daughters. 
Fielding,  "the  father  of  English  fiction,"  would,  if  he 
were  living  to-day,  be  shunned  by  his  children.  What 
sort  of  a  figure  would  Matthew  Prior  make  in  the  litera- 
ture produced  in  1877  ?  Why,  the  indecent  poet  of  to- 
day is  obliged  to  publish  his  own  books  !  No  respect- 
able publisher  will  contaminate  his  shelves,  even  with 
his  name.  It  matteis  little  how  many  dramas  Tennyson 
may  write  in  these  latter  days,  or  how  much  he  may  at- 
tempt to  give  them  the  ancient  form  and  flavor — they 
will  always  lack  one  element — that  of  indelicacy.  He 
leaves  coarseness,  indecency,  the  double  entente,  forever 
behind.  They  belonged  to  another  age,  and  all  these 
facts  show  that  w^e  have  made  a  great  advance. 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      283 

Owing  mainly  to  the  wretched  assumptions  of  dog- 
matic theology  and  the  presumptions  of  priestly  power, 
the  literary  men  and  women  of  former  days  were  scoff- 
ers— open,  aggressive,  defiant  enemies  of  Christianity. 
Now,  although  there  is  lamentation  on  every  side  that  our 
greatest  literary  producers  are  wanting  in  faith — that  they 
withhold  their  affectionate  and  trustful  allegiance  to  the 
Christian  religion,  and  regard  the  Church  as  the  conser- 
vator of  a  great  mass  of  superstitions,  the  scoffers  are 
few.  We  do  not  believe  there  was  ever  a  time  when  the 
great  majority  of  literary  men  and  women  held  so  kindly 
an  attitude  toward  the  Christian  faith  as  they  hold  to- 
day. They  are  recognizing  the  fact  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  it — a  very  powerful  something  in  it,  some- 
where— and  something  in  it  for  them,  if  they  could  but 
clear  it  of  its  husks,  and  find  the  divine  meat  and  mean- 
ing of  it.  They  feel  their  lack  of  faith  to  be  a  misfortune. 
Now,  the  difference  between  this  attitude  and  that  of 
such  a  man,  say,  as  Voltaire,  or  Thomas  Paine,  marks 
a  great  advance.  We  still  have  Bradlaughs,  it  is  true  ; 
but,  though  we  tolerate  them,  and  listen  to  them,  they 
ha\  e  a  very  shabby  following. 

The  changes  that  have  occurred  in  the  Church  itself 
are  very  remarkable  evidences  of  progress.  For  the  last 
three  hundred  years  the  world  has  carried  on  an  organ- 
ized rebellion  against  priestcraft,  and  has  been  slowly 
but  surely  releasing  itself  from  slavery.  The  supersti- 
tion of  witchcraft  has  departed  from  it.  It  is  true  that 
we  still  try  men  for  heresy,  and  tie  their  legs  with  creeds, 
but  the  followers  of  Calvin  do  not  burn  the  descendants 
of  Scrvetus.  They  "  suspend"  them  "  from  the  minis- 
try"— a  mode  of  hanging  wliich  is  not  only  quite  harm- 
less, l)ut  rather  honorable  than  otlicrwisc.  The  preju- 
dices between  sects  have  notal)ly  been  broken  down 
within  the  last  fifty  years — a  result  which  inevitably  fol- 


284  Every -Day    Topics. 

lowed  the  decline  of  belief  in  the  overshadowing  and  alt 
subordinating  importance  of  theological  formulae.  Men 
are  trying  to  get  at  the  centre  and  essence  of  Christianity 
as  they  never  were  trying  before  ;  and  they  find  that  the 
more  closely  they  approach  the  centre,  the  more  closely 
they  get  together. 

In  the  world's  politics,  we  still  have  war,  but  how 
modified  is  even  this  awful  relic  of  barbarism  !  How 
jealous  of  it  has  the  Christian  world  become  !  How  it 
questions  it  !  How  it  strives  in  a  thousand  ways  to  miti- 
gate its  horrors  and  inhumanities !  What  a  shout  it  sends 
up  when  two  great  nations  meet  and  calmly  settle  by  ar- 
bitration a  question  which  in  any  previous  age  would 
have  been  a  cause  of  war !  The  duel,  too,  is  in  dis- 
grace. Slavery  is  abolished  nearly  everywhere  on  the 
face  of  the  globe.  Prisons  have  been  reformed.  The 
insane,  formerly  forsaken  of  man,  and  supposed  to  be 
forsaken  of  God,  arc  tenderly  cared  for  by  every  Chris- 
tian state.  A  thousand  charities  reach  out  their  helpful 
hands  to  the  unfortunate  on  every  side.  The  nations  are 
brought  every  day  nearer  to  one  another,  in  the  inter- 
changes of  commerce,  and  in  the  knowledge  of,  and  re- 
spect for,  one  another.  Popular  education  is  augment- 
ing its  triumphs  and  enlarging  its  area  every  day.  And 
this  record  of  improvement  is  scaled  by  vital  statistics 
which  show  that  the  average  duration  of  human  life  has 
been  slowly  but  indisputably  increasing  from  decade  to 
decade. 

The  world  improves,  but  it  improves  as  the  tree  grows, 
"  without  observation."  The  work  of  one  man's  life  is 
small  when  applied  to  twelve  hundred  millions  of  peo- 
ple, but  it  re'ls  in  the  grand  result.  We  discover  a  great 
nest  of  corruption  in  our  Government,  and  are  tempted 
to  despair,  but  we  break  it  up.  There  are  so  many  vi- 
cious men  around  us  that  we  feel  as  if  the  world  were  go- 


Social  Fads,  Forces  and  Reforms.      285 

ing  to  the  dogs,  yet  the  recoil  and  outcry  and  protest  we 
make  show  that  we  are  more  sensitive  to  the  apprehen- 
sion of  what  is  bad  than  we  were  formerly.  The  world 
improves,  and  the  man  who  cannot  see  it,  and  will  not 
see  it,  has  a  very  good  reason  for  suspecting  that  there 
is  something  morally  at  fault  in  himself. 

An  Epidemic  of  Dishonesty. 

It  is  the  habit  of  the  Protestant  Christian  world  to  hold 
what  are  called  '*  concerts  of  prayer  "  for  certain  objects 
— for  colleges,  for  the  spread  of  Christiantity,  for  Sun- 
day-schools, for  missions,  etc.  Indeed,  we  write  this 
article  in  what  is  known  as  "  the  week  of  prayer,"  every 
day  having  assigned  to  it  some  special  object  or  subject 
of  petition.  There  can  be  no  impropriety  in  this,  and  we 
only  wish  that  those  who  hold  the  direction  of  the  mat- 
ter were  more  ready  to  see  the  crying  needs  of  the  time 
as  they  rise  and  assert  themselves.  Just  now  we  arc 
having  a  great  epidemic  of  dishonesty.  In  private  life  it 
seems  as  if  we  were  watching  a  game  of  ten-pins.  We 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  alley  and  see  the  balls  as  they 
rumble  down  toward  the  straight-backed  fellows  at  the 
other  end,  and  there  is  a  ten-stroke  every  time.  Some 
of  the  pins  stagger  about  a  good  deal  before  they  go 
down,  or  lean  against  the  "  dead  wood  "  for  awhile,  but 
they  fall  at  last,  and  we  find  that  the  man  whom  we 
don't  like  is  winning  the  game. 

Men  who  have  held,  not  only  trusts  of  money,  but  the 
faith  and  confidence  of  the  Christian  community,  one 
after  another  fall  from  their  high  positions,  bringing  ruin 
not  only  to  themselves,  but  to  all  beneath  and  around 
them.  Some  of  the  very  men  who  have  hitherto  been 
engaged  in  the  concerts  of  prayer  to  which  wc  have  al- 
luded are  to-day  in  the  state  prison.      Fiduciaries,  fairly 


286  Every -Day    Topics. 

garlanded  with  domestic  and  social  affections,  standing 
high  upon  the  church  records,  and  bearing  names  that 
were  pass-words  into  the  best  society,  have,  one  after 
another,  tumbled  into  infamy.  Breaches  of  trust,  prac- 
tices of  fraud,  downright  thieving  pursued  through  a 
series  of  years— these  have  become  so  common  that  we 
expect  to  find  a  new  case  in  every  morning's  paper.  In- 
surance companies  are  wrecked  by  their  managers  ; 
bankers  and  brokers  "re-hypothecate"  securities  on 
which  they  have  loaned  money  ;  city  officials  steal  funds 
collected  from  drunkard-makers  and  run  away,  and — 
but  the  story  is  too  familiar  and  too  discouraging  and 
disgusting  to  be  rehearsed  in  all  its  details. 

Certainly  we  have  seen  enough  of  these  shocking  cases 
of  individual  crime  to  become  convinced  that  the  public 
mind  is  diseased,  and  that  we  have  an  epidemic  of  dis- 
honesty. Exactly  how  it  has  come  to  us  we  cannot  tell. 
We  suspect  that  the  paper  lie  upon  which  we  have  lived 
so  many  years  has  had  something  to  do  with  it ;  and  now, 
confirming  our  opinion  concerning  the  nature  and  preva- 
lence of  the  disease,  we  are  shamed  by  the  most  wide- 
spread and  astounding  exhibition  of  the  spirit  of  public 
repudiation.  Every  honorable  American  must  hang  his 
head  in  shame  to  see  not  only  whole  States  legislating 
their  debts,  or  portions  of  their  debts,  out  of  existence, 
but  to  see  in  Congress — the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
— a  disposition  to  tamper  with  the  national  honor  and  the 
public  credit. 

At  this  present  writing  the  much-talkcd-of  silver-bill 
has  not  been  passed — a  bill  which  practically  provides 
for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt  at  the  rate  of  a  little 
more  than  ninety  cents  on  the  dollar.  Nothing  but  the 
most  stupendous  foolishness  or  the  wildest  hallucination 
can  prevent  any  man  who  is  engaged  in  forwarding  this 
6hocking  business  from   seeing  that  he  is  sapping   the 


Social  Facts^   Forces  and  Reforms.      287 

national  credit,  tainting  the  national  honor,  inflicting  in- 
calculable damage  upon  the  business  world,  and  con- 
victing himself  of  being  a  thief.  It  is  profoundly  humil- 
iating to  know  that  there  are  men  enough  in  Congress 
who  favor  this  abominable  scheme  to  make  it  doubtful 
whether  it  can  be  blocked  by  a  presidential  veto.  To 
find  powerful  newspapers,  powerful  politicians,  men  who 
regard  themselves  as  statesmen,  whole  sections  of  the 
country,  carried  away  by  this  madness  —  nay,  rather 
bearing  it  boastfully,  and  insisting  that  it  is  not  only 
sound  statesmanship,  but  the  highest  political  honesty — 
is  simply  astounding.  Words  can  do  no  justice  to  the 
surprise  and  indignation  of  the  honest  patriotism  of  the 
country  in  contemplating  this  horrible  lapse  from  the 
national  dignity  and  honor. 

There  is  one  good  result  that  will  come  of  this  busi- 
ness, and  as  it  will  come  in  the  form  of  punishment  to 
those  who  have  tampered  with  the  public  credit,  it  will 
not  be  regretted  in  any  quarter  that  now  lifts  its  voice  in 
protest.  There  are  States  that  can  never  borrow  any 
more  money.  Perhaps  it  will  be  well  for  them  that  they 
cannot,  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  they  may  see  the 
time  when  they  will  be  glad  for  some  purpose  to  dis- 
count the  future  a  little.  Certainly,  the  West  and  South 
will  find  it  very  much  harder  to  borrow  money  in  the  fu- 
ture than  they  have  in  the  past.  This  they  must  expect, 
so  far  as  foreign  capital  is  concerned,  for  that  capital  is 
very  sensitive  ;  and  if  New  England  or  New  York  cap- 
ital goes  West  or  South  for  investment,  it  can  only  de- 
mand a  ruinous  rate  of  interest,  for  it  can  never  know 
when  its  claims  may  be  repudiated  altogether.  These 
States  arc  all  paying  a  higher  rate  of  interest  than  would 
be  necessary  if  their  credit  were  good.  Nothing  is  bet- 
ter understood  than  the  fact  that  a  good,  trustworthy 
security  can  get  money  at  half  the  rates  that  the  Wes" 


288  Every -Day    Topics. 

and  South  have  been  paying  for  years.  All  sins  of  repu- 
diation go  home  to  roost,  and  if  this  country  should  be 
so  base  as  to  undertake  to  pay  its  debts  at  ninety  cents 
on  the  dollar,  it  will  be  obliged  to  pay  more  than  it  will 
gain  by  the  proceeding  the  next  time  it  may  undertake 
to  borrow  money  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  Retribu- 
tion for  all  wrongs  of  this  kind  is  as  certain  as  the  sun's 
rising  and  setting. 

In  the  meantime,  we  submit  that  it  would  be  a  good 
plan  to  have  some  concert  of  action  among  our  Chris- 
tian communities  in  regard  to  preaching  down,  or  pray- 
ing for  the  removal  of,  this  awful  epidemic  of  dishonesty. 
It  is  certainly  important  and  menacing  enough  to  oe- 
mand  one  day  in  the  year  before  us  for  its  own  special 
treatment.  Let  the  heathen  rest  for  a  little.  Let  dog- 
matic theology  rc3t  for  a  little.  Let  us  hold  up  in  this 
matter  of  trying  heretics  for  a  week  or  so,  until  at  least 
the  members  of  the  Church  can  be  trusted  with  the  funds 
of  the  church,  not  to  speak  of  the  money  of  widows  and 
orphans.  We  say  this  in  no  spirit  of  banter  or  mockery. 
We  say  it  because  the  church  has  insisted  altogether  too 
much  on  matters  that  do  not  at  all  take  hold  of  charac- 
ter and  life.  The  head  of  Christendom  is  orthodox 
enough.  It  is  the  heart,  the  character,  the  life  that  are 
heteredox,  and  until  these  are  reached  in  the  way  that 
they  are  not  reached  now,  and  have  not  been  reached 
for  years,  our  epidemic  will  continue  and  settle  down 
into  a  national  disease  like  the  goitre  in  Switzerland  and 
leprosy  in  Arabia. 

Familiarity. 

Of  all  the  sources  of  bad  manners,  we  know  of  none 
so  prolific  and  pernicious  as  the  license  of  familiarity. 
There  is  no  one  among  our  readers,  we  presume,  who 
has  not  known  a  village  or  a  neighborhood  in  which  all 


Social  Facts^  Forces  and  Reforms.      289 

the  people  called  one  another  by  their  first  or  Chris- 
tian names.  The  "  Jim,"  or  "  Charley,"  or  "  Mollie,"  or 
"  Fanny,"  of  the  young  days  of  school-life,  remain  the 
same  until  they  totter  into  the  grave  from  old  age.  Now, 
there  may  be  a  certain  amount  of  good-fellowship  and 
homely  friendliness  in  this  kind  of  familiar  address,  but 
there  is  not  a  particle  of  politeness  in  it.  It  is  all  very 
well,  within  a  family  or  a  circle  of  relatives,  but  when  it 
is  carried  outside,  it  is  intolerable.  The  co".itesies  of 
life  are  carried  on  at  arm's  length,  and  no^  n  a  familiar 
embrace.  Every  gentleman  has  a  right  to  the  title,  at 
least,  of  "  Mister,"  and  every  lady  to  that  of  "  Miss  "  or 
"Mistress,"  even  when  the  Christian  name  is  used. 
For  an  ordinary  friend  to  address  a  married  woman  as 
"  Dolly  "  or  "  Mary,"  is  to  take  with  her  an  unpardon- 
able liberty.  It  is  neither  courteous  nor  honorable  ;  in 
other  words,  it  is  most  unmannerly.  We  have  known 
remarkable  men,  living  for  years  under  the  blight  of 
their  familiarly  used  first  names — men  whose  fortunes 
would  have  been  made,  or  greatly  mended,  by  removing 
to  some  place  where  they  could  have  been  addressed 
with  the  courtesy  due  to  their  worth,  and  been  rid  for- 
ever of  the  cheapening  processes  of  familiarity.  How  can 
a  man  lift  his  head  under  the  degradation  of  being  called 
"Sam"  by  every  man,  young  and  old,  whom  he  may 
meet  in  the  street?  How  can  a  strong  character  be  car- 
ried when  the  man  who  bears  it  must  bow  decently  to 
the  name  of  "Billy?" 

This  is  not  a  matter  that  we  have  taken  up  to  sport 
with.  We  approach  it  and  regard  it  with  all  seriousness, 
for  this  feeling  and  exhibition  of  familiarity  lie  at  the 
basis  of  the  worst  manners  of  the  American  people.  We 
are  not  asking,  specially,  for  reverence  for  age  or  high 
position,  but  for  manhood  and  womanhood.  The  man 
and  woman  who  have  arrived  at  their  majority  have  a 
13 


290  Every-Day   Topics. 

right  to  a  courteous  form  of  address,  and  he  who  with- 
holds it  from  them,  or,  presuming  upon  the  intimacies 
of  boyhood,  continues  to  speak  to  them  as  still  boy  and 
girl,  is  a  boor,  and  practically  a  foe  to  good  manners. 
We  suppose  the  Friends  would  object  to  this  statement, 
but  we  do  not  intend  to  embrace  them  in  this  condemna- 
tion. They  look  at  this  matter  from  a  different  stand- 
point, and  base  their  practice  upon  certain  considera- 
tions which  have  no  recognition  in  the  world  around 
them.  We  think  they  are  mistaken,  but  their  courteous 
way  of  speaking  the  whole  of  the  first  name  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  familiar  use  of  names  and  nicknames  of 
which  we  complain.  There  is  no  use  in  denying  that 
the  free  and  general  use  of  first  names,  among  men  and 
women,  in  towns  and  neighborhoods,  is  to  the  last  de- 
gree vulgar.  Gentlemen  and  ladies  do  not  do  it.  It  is 
not  a  habit  of  polite  society,  anywhere. 

There  is  a  picture  we  have  often  contemplated,  which 
would  impress  different  men  in  different  ways,  of  a 
family  now  living  in  this  city — a  picture  which  is,  to  us, 
very  beautiful  and  very  suggestive.  A  gentleman  of  the 
old  school,  somewhat  reduced  in  circumstances,  persists 
in  living,  so  far  as  his  manners  are  concerned,  "like  a 
king."  Every  night  he  and  his  sons,  before  dining,  put 
themselves  into  evening  dress.  When  dinner  is  an- 
nounced, the  old  gentleman  gives  his  arm  to  his  vener- 
able wife  and  leads  her  to  the  table.  The  other  mem- 
bers of  the  family  preserve  the  same  manners  that  they 
would  practise  if  they  were  dining  out,  or  if  friends  were 
dining  with  them.  At  the  close  of  the  meal,  the  old 
man  and  his  sons  rise,  while  the  mother  and  daughters 
withdraw,  and  then  they  sit  down  over  their  cups,  and 
have  a  pleasant  chat.  Now,  the  average  American  will 
probably  laugh  at  this  picture,  as  one  of  foolish  and 
painful  formality,  but  there  is  a  very  good  side  to  it 


Social  Facts ^  Forces  and  Reforms.      291 

Here  is  a  family  which  insists  on  considering  itself  made 
up  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  among  whom  daily  associa- 
tion is  no  license  for  familiarity,  or  the  laying  aside  of 
good  and  constantly  respectful  manners  toward  one 
another.  There  is  undoubtedly  a  great  deal  of  bad 
manners  in  families,  growing  out  of  the  license  engen- 
dered by  familiarity — bad  manners  between  husband 
and  wife,  and  between  parents  and  children.  Parents 
are  much  to  blame  for  permitting  familiarity  to  go  so  far 
that  they  do  not  uniformly  receive,  in  courteous  forms, 
the  respect  due  to  them  from  their  children  as  gentlemen 
and  ladies. 

Of  the  degrading  familiarity  assumed  by  conscious  in- 
feriors, it  is  hardly  necessary  to  speak.  Nothing  cures 
such  a  thing  as  this  but  the  snub  direct,  in  the  most 
pointed  and  hearty  form  in  which  it  can  be  rendered. 

"  The  man  that  hails  you  '  Tom  '  or  '  Jack," 
And  proves  by  thumps  upon  your  back 

How  he  esteems  your  merit, 
Is  such  a  friend  that  one  had  need 
Be  very  much  liis  friend,  indeed, 
To  pardon  or  to  bear  it." 

Men  do  pardon  and  bear  this  sort  of  thing  altogether 
too  much  for  their  own  peace,  and  the  best  good  of  the 
transgressors.  The  royal  art  of  snubbing  is  not  suffi- 
ciently understood  and  practised  by  the  average  Ameri- 
can gentleman  and  lady.  Considering  the  credit  our 
people  have  for  boldness  and  push,  they  yield  to  the 
familiar  touch  and  speech  of  the  low  manners  around 
them  altogether  too  tamely.  Every  gentleman  not  only 
owes  it  to  himself  to  preserve  his  place  and  secure  the 
courtesy  that  is  his  by  right,  but  he  owes  it  to  society 
that  every  aggressive,  bad-mannered  man  shall  be 
taught  his  place,  and  be  compelled  to  keep  it. 


292  Every-Day   Topics. 

Social  Needs  and  Social  Leading. 

The  social  potentialities  of  the  average  American  vil- 
lage are  quite  beyond  any  man's  calculation.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  any  village  in  the  country  which  has 
not  the  materials  and  the  forces  of  the  best  civilization 
and  culture.  If  these  forces  and  these  materials  were 
not  under  restraint— if  they  were  only  free  to  follow  their 
natural  impulses  and  courses,  there  would  be  universal 
progress.  The  fact,  however,  is  that  almost  universally 
the  agencies  concerned  in  raising  the  social  life  of  a 
community  are,  for  various  reasons,  held  in  check,  or 
altogether  repressed. 

Let  us  try  to  paint  a  typical  village.  It  shall  consist, 
say,  of  a  thousand  people,  more  or  less.  The  village  has 
its  two  or  three  little  churches,  and  these  have  their  pas- 
tors—men of  fair  education  and  faultless  morals.  Still 
further,  the  village  has  one  or  two  physicians  and  a  law- 
yer. In  addition  to  these,  there  is  the  postmaster,  who 
is  usually  a  man  of  activity  and  influence  ;  there  is  the 
rich  man  of  the  village  ;  there  are  the  three  or  four  men 
who  are  only  less  rich  than  he;  there  are  the  young, 
wcU-cducatcd  families  of  these  well-to-do  people  ;  there 
are  a  dozen  women  who  are  bright  in  intellect,  and  who 
read  whatever  they  can  lay  their  hands  on  ;  there  is  a 
fair  degree  of  worldly  prosperity,  and  the  schools  are 
well  supported.  One  would  say  that  nothing  is  needed 
to  make  it  a  model  village — full  of  the  liveliest  and 
brightest  social  life,  and  possessing  all  the  means  and 
institutions  of  intellectual  culture  and  progress.  To  re- 
peat a  phrase  with  which  we  began,  the  social  potentiali- 
ties of  the  village  are  incalculable.  All  the  agencies, 
and  materials  and  appurtenances  for  a  beautiful  social 
life  and  growth  seem  to  exist,  yet  the  fact  probably  is 
that  the  village  is  socially  dead. 


Social  Facts^  Forces  and  Reforms.      293 

If  we  look  into  the  condition  of  things,  we  shall  find 
that  the  little  churches  are,  through  their  very  littleness 
and  weakness,  jealous  of  each  other  ;  that  their  pastors 
are  poor  and  are  kept  upon  a  starving  intellectual  diet ; 
that  the  doctors  and  the  lawyer  are  absorbed  in  their 
professions ;  that  the  rich  men  are  bent  upon  their 
money-getting  and  money-saving,  and  that  all  the  young 
people  are  bent  upon  frivolous  amusements.  The  vil- 
lage has  no  public  library,  no  public  hall,  no  public 
reading-room,  no  lyceum,  no  reading-clubs,  no  literary 
clubs,  and  no  institutions  or  instituted  means  for  foster- 
ing and  developing  the  intellectual  and  social  life  of  the 
villagers. 

We  have  seen  exactly  this  condition  of  things  in  a  vil- 
lage many  times,  and  we  have  seen,  under  all  these 
possibilities  and  the  hard  facts  of  apparent  indifference 
or  social  inertia  associated  with  them,  a  universal  desire 
for  something  better.  We  have  seen  churches  ashamed 
of  their  jealousies  and  the  meagre  support  accorded  to 
their  ministers.  We  have  seen  young  people  dissatis- 
fied with  their  life,  and  wishing  that  it  could  be  changed, 
and  we  have  seen  our  dozen  of  bright,  reading  women 
ready  and  longing  to  make  any  sacrifice  for  the  produc- 
tion of  a  better  social  atmosphere.  Nay,  wc  believe  that 
the  average  American  village  is  ready  for  improvement 
— ready  to  be  led. 

The  best  social  leading  is  the  one  thing  lacking.  Some- 
times it  does  not  need  even  this — only  some  fitting  oc- 
casion that  shall  bring  people  together,  and  reveal  the 
under  harmonies  which  move  and  the  sympathies  which 
bind  them.  The  probabilities  are  that  there  is  not  a  vil- 
lage in  America  that  needs  anything  more  than  good 
Ic  uling  to  raise  its  whole  social  and  intellectual  life  in- 
calculably. The  village  that  is  most  dead  and  hopeless 
needs   but   one   harmonizing,  unselfish,  elevated  will   to 


294  Every-  Day   Topics. 

lead  and  mould  it  to  the  best  life  and  the  best  issues. 
We  cannot  illustrate  this  power  of  leading  better  than  by 
citing  the  results  of  the  recent  mode  of  raising  church 
debts.  One  of  the  two  or  three  men  who  have  become 
famous  for  raising  church  debts  goes  into  a  pulpit  in  the 
morning  and  stands  before  a  bankrupt  congregation. 
He  is  told  before  he  enters  the  building  that  every  effort 
has  been  made  to  raise  the  debt,  but  in  vain  ;  that,  in- 
deed, the  people  have  not  the  money,  and  could  not 
raise  the  required  sum  if  they  would.  Yet,  in  two  hours 
every  dollar  is  subscribed,  and  the  whole  church  sits 
weeping  in  mute  and  grateful  surprise.  No  advantage 
whatever  has  been  taken  of  them.  They  have  simply, 
under  competent  leading,  done  what  they  have  all  along 
wanted  to  do,  and  what  they  have  known  it  was  their 
duty  to  do. 

Any  man  who  has  ever  had  anything  to  do  in  organiz- 
ing the  social  life  of  a  village  has,  we  venture  to  say,  been 
surprised,  amid  what  seemed  to  be  universal  stagnation, 
to  find  how  general  was  the  desire  for  reform.  Every- 
body has  been  ready.  All  were  waiting  for  just  the  right 
man  to  set  them  going,  and  he  only  needed  to  say  the 
\vord,  or  lift  and  point  the  finger. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  break  up  any  legitimate  family 
feeling  that  may  exist  in  churches,  or  to  interfere  with 
social  cliques  and  "  sets,"  or  to  break  down  any  walls 
between  classes.  We  talk  now  only  of  the  general  so- 
cial and  intellectual  life  which  brings  people  together  in 
common  high  pursuits,  and  gives  a  village  its  character 
and  influence.  It  is  only  from  this  life  that  a  strong  and 
efficient  public  spirit  can  come.  A  village  must  hold  a 
vigorous  general  life  outside  of  sects  and  cliques  and 
parties,  before  it  can  make  great  progress,  and  it  is  as- 
tonishing how  quickly  this  life  may  be  won  by  the  righJ- 
leading. 


Social  Fads,   Forces  and  Reforms.      295 

We  write  this  article  simply  to  call  the  attention  of 
that  resident,  or  those  residents  of  any  village,  who  will 
naturally  read  it,  to  their  own  duty  in  this  matter.  The 
chances  are  that  they  live  in  a  village  whose  life  is  split 
into  petty  fragments,  and  devoted  to  selfish,  or  frivolous, 
or  brutal  pursuits.  We  assure  them  that  all  the  people 
need  is  good  leading,  and  that  there  must  be  one  among 
them  who  has  the  power  in  some  good  degree  of  leading, 
organizing,  and  inspiring  a  united  and  better  life.  It  is 
not  an  office  in  which  personal  ambition  has  any  legiti- 
mate place — that  of  social  leadership.  Any  man  who 
enters  upon  it  with  that  motive  mistakes  his  position,  and 
hopelessly  degrades  his  undertaking.  But  wherever  there 
is  a  sluggish  social  life,  or  none  at  all  that  is  devoted  to 
culture  and  pure  and  elevating  pursuits,  somebody — and 
it  is  probably  the  one  who  is  reading  this  article — is  neg- 
lecting a  duty,  from  which  he  is  withheld,  most  probably, 
by  modesty.  We  assure  him  that  if  he  is  really  fit  for 
his  work,  he  will  find  an  astonishing  amount  of  promis- 
ing material  ready  and  waiting  for  his  hands. 

Marriage  as  a  Test. 

If  Nature  teaches  us  anything,  it  is  that  the  life-long 
marriage  of  one  woman  to  one  man  is  her  own  ordina- 
tion. The  sexes,  in  the  first  place,  are  produced  in  so 
nearly  equal  numbers  that  provision  is  made  for  just 
this.  Then  the  passion  of  love  makes  the  one  woman 
and  the  one  man  supremely  desirable  to  each  other,  so 
that  to  the  man  or  the  woman  moved  by  it,  all  men  and 
women,  other  than  the  object  beloved,  arc  comparatively 
of  no  value  or  attractiveness  whatever.  It  is  the  supreme 
desire  of  a  man  in  love  to  possess  and  forever  to  hold 
the  object  of  his  love.  On  this  passion  of  love  of  one 
man  for  one  woman,  and  one  woman  for  one  man,  is 


296  Every-Day   Topics. 

based  the  institution  of  the  family,  which  we  regard,  in 
common  with  the  mass  of  society,  as  the  true  social  unit. 
It  seems  to  us  that  nothing  can  be  more  demonstrable 
than  that  the  family  which  grows  out  of  what  we  call 
Christian  marriage  is,  in  all  ways,  better  adapted  to 
secure  safety,  comfort,  happiness,  and  morality  to  the 
community,  than  any  substitute  that  was  ever  tried  or 
was  ever  imagined.  The  consummation  of  love  is  the 
production  of  offspring.  The  family  is  the  institution 
which  protects  and  rears  within  an  atmosphere  of  nat- 
ural affection  the  children  born  of  love.  The  care  and 
support  of  children  are  thus  in  the  family  brought  upon 
the  hands  of  those  who  are  responsible  for  their  intro- 
duction into  life. 

We  call  this  Christian  marriage,  and  the  family  a 
Christian  institution  ;  but,  in  establishing  these  institu- 
tions as  such,  Christianity  has  done  nothing  more  than 
to  re-enact  laws  of  nature  written  with  great  plainness. 
The  growth  of  the  family  is  as  natural  as  the  growth  of 
a  plant.  Mutual  love,  whose  supreme  motive  is  mutual 
possession,  ultimates  in  the  production  of  offspring, 
whom  it  is  a  joy  to  rear  under  a  separate  roof,  subject  to 
the  economies  of  a  home.  It  is  in  a  home  constituted 
in  this  way  that  the  human  virtues  are  best  cultivated, 
that  the  finer  affections  are  most  naturally  developed, 
and  that  those  attachments  are  formed  and  those  senti- 
ments engendered  which  make  life  a  beautiful  and  sig- 
nificant thing.  The  associations  of  the  family  and  home, 
in  which  a  man  is  reared,  are  the  most  inspiring  that  he 
knows  ;  and  a  man  whose  childhood  knew  no  home, 
knows  and  feels  that  he  has  lost  or  missed  one  of  the 
great  satisfactions  and  one  of  the  most  sweetening  and 
uplifting  influences  of  his  life.  The  history  of  millions 
of  human  lives  stands  ready  to  attest  the  salutary  influ- 
ence of  home,  and  the  unnicasurable  loss  that  comes  to 


Social  Facts^  Forces  and  Reforms.      297 

all  men  who  are  deprived  of  it.  It  is  a  case  past  argu- 
ing. We  need  only  to  appeal  to  the  universal  conscious- 
ness. Nothing  is  better  understood,  or  more  widely  ad- 
mitted, than  that  home,  based  on  the  life-long  marriage 
of  one  woman  to  one  man,  and  the  family  that  naturally 
grows  out  of  such  a  union,  is  the  great  conservative  in- 
fluence of  the  world's  best  society.  Its  government,  its 
nurture,  its  social  happiness,  its  delightful  influences 
and  associations,  make  it  the  brightest,  loveliest,  holiest, 
divincst  thing  that  grows  from  any  impulse  or  affection 
of  human  nature  under  the  sanctions  of  Christianity. 

A  few  days  ago  we  received  a  letter  from  a  correspon- 
dent, asking  us  to  do  for  the  Oneida  Community  what 
we  had  permitted  a  contributor  to  do  for  the  followers 
of  George  Rapp — -to  w-rite,  or  procure  to  be  written,  a 
complete  exposition  of  its  principles  and  practices.  We 
respectfully  decline  to  do  any  such  thini^;.  The  amount 
of  dirt  involved  in  an  exposure  of  the  Oacida  Commu- 
nity's views  of  marriage  and  the  practices  that  go  with 
them  would  forbid  the  enterprise.  This  community 
stands  condemned  before  the  world,  tried  simply  by  the 
marriage-test.  It  revolutionizes  the  family  out  of  exis- 
tence. It  destroys  home,  and  substitutes  for  what  wc 
know  as  Christian  marriage  something  which  it  calls 
"  complex  marriage."  We  know  by  the  phrase  some- 
thing of  what  it  must  be,  but  its  abominations  are  too 
great  to  be  spread  before  the  general  reader.  Into  sucli 
a  sea  of  irredeemable  nastiness  no  editor  lias  a  right  to 
lead  his  readers. 

How  remarkable  it  is  that  whenever  an  enthusiast  in 
religion  gets  new  light,  and  adopts  what  lie  considers 
"  advanced  views,"  he  almost  invariably  begins  to  tam- 
per with  marriage  !  In  this  tampering  he  always  betrays 
the  charlatan,  and  sufficiently  warns  all  who  are  tempted 
to  follow  him  to  beware  of  him.  There  is  no  better  test 
13* 


2^8  Every -Day   Topics. 

of  a  new  system  or  scheme  of  life  than  its  relation  to 
Christian  marriage.  If  it  tampers  with  that  it  is  always 
bad,  and  can  by  no  possibility  be  good.  The  Shakers 
form  a  community  built  on  this  rotten  foundation.  They 
destroy  the  family,  root  and  branch.  They  have  no 
place  for  love,  and  enter  into  a  determined  and  organ- 
ized fight  with  the  God  of  Nature,  who,  by  the  strongest 
passions  and  impulses  He  has  ever  implanted  in  the 
human  soul,  has  commanded  them  to  establish  families 
and  homes.  Shakerism  is  good  for  nothing  if  it  is  not 
good  universally — if  it  ought  not  to  be  adopted  univer- 
sally. But  universal  adoption  would  be  the  suicide  of  a 
race,  and  a  race  has  no  more  right  to  commit  suicide 
than  a  man.  Besides,  the  damming  of  one  of  the  most 
powerful  streams  in  human  nature  only  sets  the  water 
back  to  cover  the  banks  it  was  intended  to  nourish  and 
to  drain.  It  is  too  late  to  talk  about  the  superior  sanctity 
of  the  celibate.  We  have  no  faith  in  it  whatever.  The 
vow  of  chastity  simply  emphasizes  in  the  mind  the  pas- 
sion it  is  intended,  for  spiritual  reasons,  to  suppress,  and 
fixes  the  attention  upon  it.  The  Shaker,  in  denying  love 
to  himself  and  all  the  hallowed  influences  that  grow  out 
of  family  and  home,  gains  nothing  in  holiness,  if  he  do 
not  lose  irretrievably.  He  is  the  victim  of  a  shocking 
mistake,  and  he  disgraces  himself  and  his  own  father 
and  mother  by  his  gross  views  of  an  institution  before 
whose  purity  and  beneficence  he  and  his  whole  system 
stand  condemned. 

Of  course  wc  do  not  need  to  allude  to  the  Mormon. 
His  views  of  marriage — revealed,  of  course — are  simply 
beastly.  But  these  new  schemes  of  life,  religion  and 
philosophy  are  constantly  springing  up.  It  is  very  dif- 
ficult for  any  system  of  socialism  to  establish  itself  with- 
out tampering  with  marriage,  and  one  of  the  best  argu- 
ments against  all  sorts  of  communities  and  phalansteries 


Social  Facts,   Forces  ajid  Reforms.      293 

and  what-nots  of  that  sort,  is  that  the  family,  as  a  unit, 
is  unmanageable  within  them.  They  can  take  in  and 
organize  a  miscellaneous  mass  of  individuals,  and  pro- 
vide some  sort  of  a  dirty  substitute  for  marriage,  but  the 
family  bothers  them.  It  is  a  government  within  a  gov- 
ernment, that  they  cannot  get  along  with.  So  the  mar- 
riage-test is  a  good  one  in  all  cases  of  the  kind. 

Popular  Despotism. 

There  is  a  popular  theory  that  a  despotism  always 
consists  of  the  arbitary  and  oppressive  rule  of  the  many 
by  one,  or  a  few,  and  it  seems  hard  for  the  people  to 
realize  that  the  only  despotisms  or  tryannies  that  we  have 
in  this  country  are  popular. 

We  have  had  recent  occasion  to  observe  an  instance 
of  this.  A  gentleman  employed,  through  the  head  of  a 
Broadway  establishment,  a  paper-hanger  for  three  or 
four  weeks.  Now,  a  paper-hanger  does  not  need  to  be 
a  man  of  genius.  His  papers  are  selected  for  him,  and 
he  has  simply  to  put  them  on  so  that  they  will  remain. 
There  can  be,  of  course,  such  a  thing  as  a  poor  paper- 
hanger,  but  nobody  would  ever  dream  of  placing  the 
calling  very  high  in  the  realm  of  what  is  denominated 
"skilled  labor."  When  the  gentleman  was  called  upon 
to  pay  the  bill,  he  found  that  his  paper-hanger  had  been 
making  ten  dollars  a  day.  Inquiring  into  the  matter, 
he  ascertained  that  the  man  was  a  "  society  man."  Pro- 
testing against  the  injustice  of  paying  to  a  paper-hanger 
three  or  four  times  as  much  per  diem  as  he  was  paying 
his  carpenters  and  painters,  the  answer  was,  that  it 
could  not  be  helped,  that  the  men  were  bound  to- 
gether and  pledged  to  each  other,  and  nobody  could  be 
had  to  do  the  work  more  cheaply.  The  gentleman,  of 
course,  submitted  to  the  robbery,  for  such  it  essentiallv 


30D  Every-  Day    Topics. 

was.  There  was  not  the  value  of  ten  dollars  a  day  in 
the  work,  and  every  penny  taken  over  and  above  the 
value  was  an  extortion,  an  abuse  of  power,  an  essen- 
tial outrage  and  theft. 

Now,  if  capital  were  to  combine  to  fix  the  unjust  price 
of  a  barrel  of  flour,  or,  if  any  one  man  could  monopo- 
lize a  market  and  arbitrarily  raise  the  price  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life,  and  should  do  this  relentlessly,  without  the 
slightest  reference  to  intrinic  values,  our  paper-hanger 
and  his  brother  paper-hangers  would  very  readily  under- 
stand the  nature  of  the  case.  It  is  precisely  like  their  own. 
One  has  labor  to  sell,  the  other  has  flour  and  sugar  ;  and 
both  are  guilty  of  immoral  and  despotic  conduct.  Practi- 
cally, however,  there  are  no  combinations  of  capital  for 
oppressing  consumers.  Coal  companies  and  railroad  cor- 
porations, in  their  competitions  with  each  other,  make 
arrangements  which  they  never  loyally  adhere  to  and  are 
always  breaking  ;  and  speculators,  in  their  struggles  with 
each  other,  get  up  "  corners  "  in  wheat  and  other  neces- 
saries of  life  ;  but  they  are  always  short-lived,  and  all 
honorable  business  men  denounce  them.  The  principle 
that  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  organized  attempts  to  raise 
the  price  either  of  labor  or  merchandise  above  that 
which,  in  a  perfectly  free  competition,  is  fixed  by  the 
laws  of  demand  and  supply,  is  a  principle  of  despotism, 
and  essential  robbery  and  wrong.  This  is  a  despotism 
or  a  tyranny  practised  by  the  many  upon  the  few — a 
popular  despotism. 

Of  course,  all  tyrannies  are  wrong  in  their  nature,  and 
all  tyrannies,  being  founded  in  wrong,  must  be  supported 
by  wrong.  Tyranny  must  have  its  laws  and  regula- 
tions. If  a  high  price  for  a  certain  kind  of  work  is  to 
be  maintained  by  a  society,  then  that  society  must  keep 
itself  small.  The  number  of  apprentices  must  be  lim- 
ited.    The  competition  must  not  be  free.     The  wants 


Social  Facts^   Forces  and  Reforms.      301 

and  interests  of  the  public  and  the  rights  of  the  public 
are  never  to  be  considered.  All  that  is  to  be  consid- 
ered is  the  interest,  or  what  seems  to  be  the  interest,  of 
the  organization.  The  number  of  workmen  must  be 
kept  small,  so  that  the  supply  can  meet  the  demand 
with  the  power  to  dictate  its  own  arbitary  price.  In  all 
this  action  and  attitude  of  the  trade-union  the  public  is 
the  sufferer  ;  but  there  comes  a  time  when  the  society 
becomes  despotic  upon  its  own  members,  and  even  upon 
those  of  the  sanic  craft  who  do  not  choose  to  be  society 
men.  We  have  just  passed  through  a  period  of  business 
depression.  There  has  been  no  profit  in  doing  business, 
and  men  have  been  glad  to  get  work  at  any  price.  But 
they  have  not  been  permitted  to  work  at  any  price.  The 
laws  of  the  society  have  forbidden  them.  They  have  been 
driven  from  their  work,  forced  into  strikes  that  were 
more  foolish  and  arbitrary  and  brutal  than  we  can  de- 
scribe, and  made  to  contribute  for  the  support  of  men 
who  were  quite  willing  to  work  and  earn  their  living  at 
the  market  price.  Begun  in  wrong — based  in  wrong — 
what  wonder  that  the  end  has  often  been  riot,  and  vio- 
lence, and  bloodshed  !  The  simple  truth  is  that  it  is 
all  wrong  from  beginning  to  end.  No  body  of  men,  no 
guild,  no  handicraft,  has  the  moral  or  social  right  to 
erect  itself  into  a  despotism,  and,  by  a  set  of  rules,  shut 
itself  off  from  the  operation  of  those  laws  which  govern 
all  trade  under  the  rights  of  a  perfectly  free  competition. 
Of  the  effects  of  that  despotism  which  reduces  all  ex- 
cellence to  the  level  of  all  ignorance  and  unskilfulness, 
we  do  not  need  to  speak.  To  fix  the  wages  of  all  men 
within  a  society  at  one  figure,  is  to  offer  a  premium  for 
imbecility,  and  to  strike  a  crushing  blow  upon  the  self- 
respect  and  the  amour  proprc  of  those  who  have  thouglu 
it  worth  while  to  become  belter  workmen  than  thcii 
fellows. 


302  Every  Day   Topics. 

It  is  a  hard  word  to  say,  but  the  trade-union  is  a 
nursery  of  that  monster  whose  shadow  sometimes  dark- 
ens the  earth  with  menace,  and  which  men  call  "  The 
Commune."  Now,  nothing  so  foul,  nothing  so  disgust- 
ing, nothing  so  base,  nothing  so  iniquitous  and  outra- 
geous, was  ever  conceived  in  the  womb  of  time — begot- 
ten of  the  devil— as  "  The  Commune."  It  can  never 
live  in  this  country  for  a  day.  It  can  never  live  in  any 
country  that  has  three  million  land-holders.  Its  brief 
reign  in  France  was  confined  to  Paris.  It  made  no  more 
progress  among  its  five  million  land-owners  than  fire 
would  make  upon  the  waves  of  the  ocean.  Commu- 
nism in  France  is  dead,  and  all  that  we  mean  to  say 
about  it  in  this  connection  is,  that  the  trade  societies 
are  the  natural  nurseries  of  the  Commune,  and  we  say 
this  to  show  the  rottenness  of  their  basis.  At  Pitts- 
burg the  strikers  took  possession  and  engaged  in  the 
destruction  of  property  not  their  own,  and  the  materials 
of  the  Commune  mingled  with  them  as  naturally  as  one 
stream  of  water  mingles  with  another.  The  whole  sys- 
tem that  leads  to  violence  like  this  is  necessarily  a  sys- 
tem of  demoralization.  This  undertaking  to  control 
the  labor  of  a  class  against  the  competitions  and  inter- 
ests of  a  whole  country,  to  regulate  that  labor  and  its 
prices  in  all  their  details,  to  reduce  and  to  raise  to  one 
standard  of  reward  all  the  varied  degrees  of  skill  and 
excellence,  and  to  order  everything  for  the  benefit  of 
the  society  as  against  all  other  society,  even  to  the  exer- 
cise of  hardship  upon  the  members  and  violence  upon 
all  opposing  or  non-consenting  forces,  is  a  most  efficient 
training  for  the  Commune.  It  tends  toward  it — it  pre- 
pares and  educates,  or  sophisticates  the  mind  for  it ; 
and  if  our  late  hard  times  have  in  any  degree — and  we 
believe  that  they  have  in  a  great  degree — weakened  the 
hold  of  these  societies  upon  the  different  trades,  let  us 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Reforms.      303 

thank  God  for  at  least  one  great  and  good  result  of  their 
coming,  and  take  courage. 

The  Social  Evil. 

There  are  some  topics  which  an  editor  does  not  like  to 
write  upon — which  the  people  do  not  like  to  read  about; 
but  when  they  relate  to  a  great  social  danger  they  are 
forced  on  the  public  attention,  and  must  be  discussed 
with  such  inoffcnsiveness  of  language  as  may  be  possi- 
ble in  a  frank  and  forcible  treatment  of  them.  The  late 
Grand  Jury,  which  found  it  in  the  line  of  its  apprehended 
duty  to  recommend  the  establishment  of  regulated  pros- 
titution, has  forced  the  topic  upon  the  press,  and  it 
must  be  met  and  disposed  of. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  at  a  time  when  a  most  determined 
effort  is  making,  not  only  in  England,  but  all  over  the 
Continent,  for  the  doing  away  of  the  laws  whicli  in  Eng- 
land exist  under  the  name  of  the  "  Contagious  Diseases 
Act,"  and,  in  other  countries,  under  equally  insignificant 
and  innocent  titles,  there  should  be  widely  scattered,  but 
determined  efforts  to  give  those  laws  an  asylum  in 
America.  There  have  been  as  many  as  three  or  four 
attempts  to  establish  regulative  laws  in  Washington, 
three  in  New  York,  one  in  Cincinnati,  one  in  St.  Louis — ■ 
successful,  but  now  repealed — one  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
one  in  California.  These  attempts  have  been  initiated 
and  made  in  various  ways.  Boards  of  Health  have  had 
something  to  do  with  the  matter.  Committees  on  Crime 
and  Prison  Reports  have  recommended  sucli  laws  ;  and 
the  advocates  of  the  change  have  sought  to  accomplish 
their  purposes  through  legislative  enactments  and  city 
charters.  The  presentation  of  tlie  Grand  Jury  in  this 
city  is  tlie  latest  attempt  in  tliis  direction  ;  and  now,  on 
behalf  of  common  decency  and  public  morality,  and  on 


304  Every- Day    Topics. 

behalf  of  all  right-thinking  men,  and  absolutely  all  wo- 
men,  we  beg  leave  to  enter  our  most  emphatic  protest. 

We  do  not  question  the  motives  of  the  Grand  Jury 
There  is  a  class  of  good  men  who,  apprehending  the  im- 
mensity of  the  social  evil,  and  absolutely  hopeless  of  its 
cure,  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  best  way  is 
to  regulate  that  which  they  cannot  suppress — to  recog- 
nize in  law,  and  regulate  by  law,  a  bestial  crime  which 
no  penalties  have  been  sufficient  to  exterminate.  These 
men  mean  well.  They  embrace  in  their  number  many 
physicians  and  scientific  men.  They  support  their  posi- 
tion by  a  thousand  ingenious  arguments  ;  but  the  great 
crowd  that  stand  behind  these  men — silent,  watchful,  and 
hopeful — ready  with  votes,  ready  with  money — is  made 
up  of  very  different  materials,  and  actuated  by  very  dif- 
ferent motives.  They  are  men  who  desire  to  commit 
crime  with  impunity — to  visit  a  brothel  without  danger 
of  apprehension  and  without  danger  of  infection.  They 
are  the  cold-blooded,  scoffing  foes  of  social  purity. 
There  is  not  one  of  them  who  does  not  desire  to  have 
prostitution  "regulated"  on  behalf  of  his  own  beastly 
carcass. 

The  effect  of  these  regulative  laws  on  all  European  so- 
ciety has  been  precisely  that  which,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  might  have  been  anticipated.  During  the  existence 
of  Christian  society,  all  commerce  of  the  sexes  outside 
of  the  obligations  and  liberties  of  Christian  marriage,  has 
been  regarded  and  treated  as  a  crime.  "  Thou  shalt 
not  commit  adultery  "  has  been  transcribed  from  the 
tables  of  stone  upon  every  statute-book  of  every  Christian 
State.  Now^  the  very  first  effect  of  an  instituted  at- 
tempt, on  the  part  of  the  State,  to  regulate  by  law  a  well- 
defined  crime,  not  only  against  the  civil  but  the  moral 
law,  is  to  lower  the  standard  of  the  public  morality.  To 
legalize  vice,  even  to  the  extent  of  regulating  it  as  an 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      305 

evil,  is  to  make  it  in  a  degree  respectable.  To  regulate 
a  vicious  calling — carried  on  only  to  the  everlasting  ruin 
of  all  who  are  engaged  in  it — is  to  recognize  it  as  a  call- 
ing, and  legitimize  it.  We  say  that  the  evil  effects  of  this 
legislation  on  European  society  might  have  been  antici- 
pated by  any  but  the  blind.  It  was  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  that  the  tone  of  the  public  morality  would  be  low- 
ered by  it.  When,  added  to  this  terrible  result,  the 
people  found  themselves  released  from  the  fear  of  infec- 
tion, through  the  medical  supervision  of  the  wretched 
women  whose  legitimized  calling  provided  for  their  bes- 
tialities, they  were  ready  to  accept  their  new  privileges. 
The  morality  of  Paris,  of  Brussels,  of  Berlin,  of  Vienna — 
of  all  the  great  Continental  centres — has  been  absolutely 
honeycombed  with  sexual  corruption.  Morality  low- 
ered, increased  immunity  from  danger  effected,  and  the 
beast  in  man  was  let  loose  to  have  its  own  way.  The 
translation  of  a  vice  into  an  evil  is  the  transformation  of 
a  thing  to  be  blamed  into  a  thing  to  be  pitied  and  de- 
plored. Recognizing  that  evil  as  a  necessity,  we  have 
only  to  take  one  more  step  to  make  it  an  ordination  of 
heaven. 

"  Well,  what  would  you  do  ?  "  inquire  the  advocates  of 
regulation.  "  Here  is  a  great  evil.  We  suppress  it  in 
one  quarter,  and  it  springs  to  life  in  another.  It  has  as 
many  heads  as  Hydra.  The  diseases  which  it  engenders 
are  poisoning  the  children  who  are  innocent.  They  are 
reducing  the  physical  tone  of  the  nation,  and  thus  di- 
minishing the  average  years  of  life."  Yes,  we  know  all 
this  ;  but  how  do  you  expect  to  treat  effectually  a  two- 
sided  crime  with  one-sided  laws  ?  Who  spreads  disease 
among  the  children,  or  transmits  it  to  them  ?  The  wo- 
men ?  Not  at  all.  It  is  the  class  for  which  you  have 
no  law — the  class  which,  nine  cases  in  ten,  brought  the 
women  down  to  dissolute  habits — the  class  which,  with 


3o6  Every-Day   Topics. 

bribes  in  its  hands,  makes  prostitution  as  a  calling  pos- 
sible. The  men  go  free.  You  propose  to  let  them  go 
free.  For  them  you  have  no  registration,  no  medical 
inspection,  no. surveillance,  no  restraints,  and  no  penal- 
ties of  any  sort.  The  bald  injustice  of  the  thing  is  a 
temptation  to  profanity.  There  is  not  a  woman  in  the 
land,  bad  or  good,  who  does  not  feel  it  to  be  such.  To 
undertake  by  law  to  regulate  what  we  call  the  social  evil, 
is  to  undertake  to  provide  facility  and  safety  for  the 
overbearing  passions  of  the  young,  and  the  incorrigible 
lecher  grown  old  in  his  vice.  It  is  practically  to  dis- 
courage marriage  by  debasing  the  moralities  and  the 
respect  for  woman  in  which  only  true  marriage  is  possi- 
ble. It  is  to  transform  American  society,  socially  the 
most  pure  of  any  on  the  earth,  into  the  semblance  and 
substance  of  that  which  prevails  in  Paris,  Vienna,  and 
Berlin.  It  is  indefinitely  and  immeasurably  to  increase 
the  moral  side  of  the  evil,  which  you  and  all  good  people 
deplore,  by  legitimizing  it,  and  by  diminishing  its  physi- 
cal dangers.  The  laws  you  propose  would  be  brush 
heaped  upon  a  bonfire. 

If  we  are  to  have  laws,  let  us  have  just  laws.  In  the 
first  place,  let  us  not  talk  about  a  voluntary  crime  as  a 
necessary  and  incurable  evil.  That  is  demoralization  at 
the  start.  In  the  second  place,  let  vis  have  for  all  two- 
sided  crimes  two-sided  laws.  Prostitution  is  a  two-sided 
crime.  It  is  not  possible  without  a  confederate  or  a  com- 
panion. Make  the  same  law  for  one  that  you  make  for 
the  other,  and  see  how  long  prostitution  would  last.  Do 
this,  and  prostitution  would  be  reduced  seventy-five  per 
cent,  in  twenty-four  hours.  Station  a  policeman  at  every 
brothel.  Compel  every  man  who  enters  to  register  his 
name  and  residence,  and  report  himself  to  the  medical 
authorities  every  three  days  for  a  month.  Provide  the 
same  penalties,  the  same  restrictions,  the  same  disgraces 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      307 

and  painful  humiliations  for  one  party  that  you  do  for 
the  other,  and  then  see  what  would  come  of  it.  There 
is  something  curative  in  this  proposition,  because  it  is 
indubitably  just ;  and  the  reason  why  prostitution  has 
grown  to  its  alarming  dimensions  is  simply  and  only  be- 
cause the  laws  relating  to  it  are  unjust.  No  legislation 
which  takes  into  consideration  only  one  of  the  guilty 
parties  can  possibly  thrive.  It  never  ought  to  thrive. 
It  is  an  outrage  upon  the  criminal  who  is  discriminated 
against.  It  is  an  outrage  upon  the  common  sense  of 
justice. 

When  our  grand  juries,  and  our  boards  of  health, 
and  our  medical  conventions,  and  our  legislators  are 
ready  for  regulative  laws  which  embrace  both  parties 
in  the  social  crime,  we  shall  be  with  them — for  such 
laws  will  not  be  simply  regulative — they  will  be  curative. 
Until  then,  we  call  upon  all  good  people  to  oppose  as 
they  would  oppose  fire,  or  plague,  or  invasion,  every  at- 
tempt to  give  us  the  regulative  laws  that  have  debased 
all  Europe,  and  from  which  many  of  the  best  Europeans 
arc  trying  to  release  themselves. 

The  Popular  Wisdom. 

A  discussion  has  recently  been  brought  to  a  close  in 
The  NinetccntJi  Century,  under  the  title,  "A  Modern 
Symposium,"  on  the  question  :  "  Is  the  popular  judg- 
ment in  politics  more  just  than  that  of  the  higher 
orders?"  The  leading  participants  in  this  discussion 
were  Messrs.  Gladstone,  Grey,  Hutton,  Lowe,  and  Lord 
Arthur  Russell.  The  most  that  seems  to  be  proved  is 
that  much  may  be  said  on  both  sides,  though  the  pie- 
jionderance  of  opinion  seems  to  be  on  the  affirmative 
side  of  the  cpicstion.  Much  is  made  in  the  discussion  of 
the  parliamentary  history  of  the  last  seventy  years,  in  its 


3o8  Every -Day    Topics. 

exhibition  of  the  popular  judgment  upon  political  mat- 
ters. After  all,  Mr.  Lowe  puts  the  matter  in  a  nutshell 
when  he  says  :  "  Take  two  persons,  one  from  the  lower 
and  one  from  the  higher  classes,  and  propose  to  them 
any  political  question  ;  which  will  be  likely  to  give  you 
a  right  answer,  the  man  who  has  had  some  kind  of  edu- 
cation, or  the  man  who  has  not  passed  beyond  a  very 
moderate  acquaintance  with  reading  and  writing,  prob- 
ably somewhat  the  worse  for  wear  ?  "  The  massing  or 
multiplication  of  ignorance  can  hardly  amount  to  wis- 
dom. The  best  men  will  do  the  best  thinking  and  the 
best  work. 

We  have  in  this  country,  as  they  have  in  England,  the 
curse  of  trades-unions,  and  it  seems  to  us  that  the  man- 
agement of  these  in  America  has  pretty  conclusively 
proved  that  what  would  be  called  in  England  the  "lower 
orders"  have  the  very  poorest  judgment.  Certainly,  no 
educated,  intelligent  man,  or  body  of  men,  would  pur- 
sue the  course  of  these  men  in  the  management  of  their 
interests.  Nothing  more  utterly  suicidal  can  be  imag- 
ined than  the  policy  which  inaugurates  and  perpetuates 
strikes,  and  organizes  for  labor  a  struggle  with  capital  as 
its  enemy.  In  the  long  depression  of  industrial  interests 
from  which  this  country  has  suffered,  we  have  seen  cap- 
ital keeping  labor  employed,  sometimes  at  a  loss,  never 
at  a  profit,  and  always  for  the  benefit  of  labor,  while 
labor  has  quarrelled  with  its  bread  and  butter.  Even 
under  these  extreme  circumstances,  laborers  have  struck 
for  higher  wages,  and  compelled  the  closing  of  mills  and 
the  shutting  down  of  gates ;  and  when  business  has  re- 
vived, and  capital  has  at  last  won  its  chance  for  a  mod- 
est remuneration,  the  most  unreasonable  demands  from 
labor  have  made  its  enterprise  a  torment.  Nothing  more 
unfair  than  the  demands  of  labor,  and  nothing  more  un- 
wise than  its  action,  can  be  imagined.     Everybody  but 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Reforms.      309 

the  laborers  themselves  have  seen  that  they  have  done 
themselves  harm  and  not  good,  and  that  the  result  of 
their  policy  has  been  bad  upon  every  interest  involved. 
Certainly  we  are  not  to  regard  the  outcome  of  trades- 
unions  in  this  country  as  an  evidence  of  the  superiority 
of  the  judgment  of  the  common  people  in  politics.  Men 
who  manage  their  own  affairs  so  badly  can  hardly  be  re- 
garded as  fit  men  to  guide  the  state.  Men  who  are  in- 
capable of  seeing  that  other  interests  besides  their  own 
must  thrive,  or  the  latter  can  have  no  basis  of  thrift, 
could  not  be  trusted  with  legislation. 

We  doubt  whether  there  was  ever  a  time  in  the  history 
of  the  country  when  Congress  was  more  a  representative 
of  the  popular  will  than  at  present,  and  we  have  good 
reason  to  believe  that  the  nation  has  never  seen  the  time 
when  every  good  interest  was  in  such  dread  of  Congress 
as  it  is  at  present.  If  Congress  could  not  meet  again 
for  the  next  five  years,  there  is  hardly  an  interest  or  a 
class  in  the  community  that  would  not  feel  profoundly 
relieved.  The  members  of  both  houses  have,  in  so 
many  instances,  come  from  their  constituencies  so  pos- 
sessed by  and  charged  with  crude  theories  of  govern- 
ment and  finance,  based  in  popular  ignorance  and 
caprice,  that  the  country  at  large  has  no  faith  in  them. 
The  popular  estimate  of  the  silver  question  and  the  soft 
money  question,  in  many  localities  that  make  themselves 
felt  in  Congress,  is  absolutely  dangerous  to  every  politi- 
cal, commercial  and  industrial  interest.  There  are  mul- 
titudes to-day  who  honestly  believe  that  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments  is  a  great  public  calamity — that  an 
honest  dollar  is  a  curse  to  a  ]K)or  man^that  the  poor 
man  is  harmed  by  the  fact  that  a  dollar  in  paper  is  as 
good  as  a  dollar  in  gold.  Still  the  heresy  lingers  in  the 
popular  mind  in  many  localities  that  money  can,  by 
some  process,  be  made  cheap,  so  that  by  some  hocus- 


3IO  Every -Day   Topics. 

pocus  the  poor  man  can  get  hold  of  it  without  paying 
its  equivalent  for  it.  They  do  not  reason  upon  the 
subject  at  all.  They  seem  incapable  of  understanding 
that  no  value  can  be  acquired  without  paying  for  it,  and 
that  a  good  dollar  will  buy  just  as  much  more  of  the 
commodities  of  life  as  it  is  dearer  than  a  "  cheap  dollar." 
They  have  but  to  look  back  a  few  years  to  the  time  of 
cheap  money  ;  their  labor,  it  is  true,  commanded 
nominally  a  large  price,  but  their  rent  was  twice  what  it 
is  now,  and  food  and  clothing  were  proportionately 
dearer  than  they  are  now  ;  but  this  seems  to  teach  them 
nothing.  They  seem  incapable  of  comprehending  the 
fact  that  by  an  unchangeable  law  money  will  command 
only  what  it  is  worth,  and  will  certainly  command  from 
them  what  it  is  worth.  They  have  an  idea  that  there 
should  be  more  money  when  it  is  the  testimony  of  all 
who  know  that  the  volume  of  money  is  quite  large 
enough  for  all  purposes,  only  it  cannot  be  had  without 
rendering  an  equivalent  for  it.  It  has  to  be  worked  for 
and  earned,  but  when  it  is  acquired  it  is  good  money, 
without  any  discount,  competent  to  enter  the  markets  of 
the  world  on  even  terms. 

The  popular  estimate  and  treatment  of  the  silver  ques- 
tion are  as  wild  as  the  popular  estimate  and  treatment  of 
the  soft  money  question.  The  effect  that  silver  was  to 
have  upon  the  laboring  man's  interests  was  to  be  little 
less  than  miraculous.  It  was  to  increase  his  debt-paying 
power.  No  wise  financier  could  see  how  this  was  to  be 
done.  Nobody  wanted  the  silver  to  handle,  and  nobody 
wants  it  now,  when  he  can  get  gold  or  paper,  but  there 
v.ere  sections  of  the  people  represented  in  Congress 
who  believed  there  was  in  silver  a  panacea  for  their 
financial  ills  ;  but  they  have  learned  that  a  silver  dollar 
costs  as  much  as  any  other  dollar,  and  that  its  coinage 
does  nothing  toward  putting  it  into  their  pockets.     So 


Social  Facts^   Forces  and  Reforms.      3 1 1 

the  dollars  which  everybody  dislikes  accumulate  in  the 
treasury,  and  go  on  accumulating,  for  the  business 
world  has  no  use  for  them. 

Nearly  all  these  financial  schemes  have  had  their 
birth  in  ignorant  brains,  have  been  adopted  by  igno- 
rant people,  and  pushed  in  Congress  by  demagogues 
fresh  from  the  people,  and  sworn  to  the  service  of  those 
who  sent  them.  These  men,  representing  these  people, 
are  the  bane  and  terror  of  the  country,  in  all  its  great 
interests  and  enterprises.  So  true  is  this  that  the  one 
danger  that  stands  as  a  menace  of  all  national  prosper- 
ity and  safety  is  Congress.  We  dread  Congress  as  we 
do  pestilence.  It  is  a  stench  and  an  abomination.  It 
was  well  that  the  writers  of  "  A  Modern  Symposium  " 
did  not  appeal  to  the  present  conduct  of  American  af- 
fairs for  evidence  of  the  superiority  of  the  political  wis- 
dom of  the  common  people.  They  certainly  would 
have  appealed  in  vain.  Everything  in  our  history  shows 
us  that  brains,  well  cultivated,  are  needed  for  govern- 
ment. In  great  crises,  when  the  moral  element  is  in- 
volved, when  right  and  wrong  are  to  be  decided  upon, 
and  the  patriotic  sentiment  and  impulse  are  to  be 
appealed  to,  the  people  can  be  trusted ;  but  of  the 
science  of  government,  of  true  political  wisdom,  and  of 
the  knowledge  of  political  economy,  they  are  as  innocent 
as  children,  and  cannot  be  trusted  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves. 

A  Word  on  Politics. 

As  both  political  parties  have  at  various  times  declared 
themselves  in  favor  of  a  reform  in  the  Civil  Service,  we 
shall  not  be  accused  of  dabbling  in  party  politics  by  an 
allusion  to  the  subject.  It  is  true  that  neither  party  has 
shown  itself  to  be  in  thorough  earnest.  The  men  on 
both  sides  who  run  the  political  machine  arc  very  much 


$  1 2  Every -Day    Topics. 

averse  to  this  reform.  They  talk  in  their  organs  ver> 
contemptuously  about  "doctrinaires,"  and  "impracti- 
cable schemes,"  and  about  the  application  to  democratic 
institutions  of  a  rule  of  action  transplanted  from  the  mo- 
narchical and  aristocratic  government  of  Great  Britain  ! 

Those  who  have  read  the  President's  Annual  Message, 
and  have  carefully  considered  his  somewhat  elaborate 
treatment  of  this  subject,  will  hardly  find  anything  new 
or  impressive  in  what  we  may  offer  here  ;  but  Presidents' 
messages  are  read  so  little,  or  so  carelessly,  that  the 
bread  may  well  be  broken  to  the  multitude  by  other 
hands.  The  subject  is  an  easy  one  to  argue.  There  is 
no  man  living  who,  before  an  audience  of  intelligent  and 
non-partisan  persons,  can  justify  the  old  mode  of  politi- 
cal appointment  to  office.  Every  consideration  is  against 
it.  The  rewarding  of  party  service  by  the  gift  of  office 
is,  in  the  first  place,  a  direct  corruption  of  morals  in  all 
concerned.  It  is  the  patent  substitution  of  a  base  mo- 
tive in  political  work  for  a  patriotic  one  ;  and  wherever 
and  in  whatever  nieasure  it  prevails,  it  degrades  pol- 
itics and  debases  character,  so  that  the  very  process 
of  earning  office  by  party  work  unfits  for  the  public  ser- 
vice with  which  it  seeks  to  be  rewarded.  In  any  fair 
man's  mind,  the  fact  that  a  man  has  done  some  powerful 
politician's  dirty  work  for  the  sake  of  getting  an  office 
which  has  been  promised  him,  would  be  enough  to  con- 
demn him  as  most  unfit  to  hold  any  office  in  the  gift  of 
the  Government. 

Opposition  to  Civil  Service  reform  comes  only  from 
party  politicians  who  have  dirty  work  to  do— and  by 
dirty  work  we  mean  simply  the  work  which  they  are 
ashamed  to  do  for  themselves.  How  to  pay  for  this 
work  without  taking  the  money  out  of  their  own  pockets  is 
the  question.  If  there  were  some  other  way  besides  tlie 
bestowal  of  public  office,  they  would  take  the  people's 


Social  Facts  J  Forces  and  Reforms.      313 

side  of  this  matter,  and  we  should  have  the  reform  fuUj 
and  at  once.  But,  in  truth,  they  see  no  way  of  getting 
their  own  work  done  except  by  paying  office  for  it.  So 
they  are  opposed  to  the  reform,  and  throw  all  possible 
obstacles  in  its  way.  In  this  they  are  aided,  of  course, 
by  all  their  whipper-snappers  up  and  down  the  land. 
Let  it  be  understood  that  the  advocates  of  reform  simply 
ask  that  the  Government  shall  have  the  advantage  of  the 
same  rules  of  business  that  are  practised  and  enjoyed 
by  a  private  man  or  corporation.  No  business  concern 
would  prosper,  or  be  considered  safe  for  a  day,  whose 
affliirs  were  carried  on  by  a  set  of  officials  and  opera- 
tives wh )  had  received  their  places,  not  because  of  any 
fitness  for  their  work,  but  from  corrupt  considerations 
of  favoritism.  The  fact  that  reform  is  entirely  practi- 
cable is  demonstrated  by  the  history  of  the  same  reform 
in  Great  Britain,  where  office  was  formerly  bestowed 
both  as  a  reward  of  party  service  and  as  the  gift  of  per- 
sonal favoritism.  The  reform  met  the  same  opposition 
there  that  it  is  meeting  here  ;  but  it  is  complete,  and  all 
are  not  only  satisfied,  but  delighted  with  it. 

It  should  be  remembered,  also,  in  the  consideration  of 
this  subject,  that  the  effect  of  "  the  machine  "  is  not  only 
disastrous  to  the  efficiency  of  the  public  business,  but 
tiiat  it  reacts  mischievously  upon  the  political  life  of  the 
country.  If  there  were  no  such  thing  as  "  the  spoils  of 
office,"  a  very  diffiirent  set  of  men  would  naturally  find 
themselves  in  possession  of  the  political  machinery.  It 
is  the  base  men — the  men  who  are  open  to  mercenary 
considerations,  the  men  who  are  after  rewards  of  various 
sorts,  and  who  are  working  in  the  private  interest  of 
others  as  well  as  themselves — who  control  the  primaries, 
and  drive  from  influence  those  who  cannot  become  yoke- 
fellows with  political  understrappers  and  gamblers.  The 
great  masses  of  the  people  are  honest,  and  desire  to  deal 


314  Every- Day   Topics. 

honestly  with  poHtical  affairs  ;  but  they  have  not  at  al\ 
the  machinery  of  poHtics  in  their  hands,  and  they  are  led 
by  a  set  of  political  tricksters  into  campaigns  the  bottom 
motives  of  which  are  utterly  base  and  shameful.  Take  the 
last  political  campaign  in  New  York.  The  Democratic 
party  was  divided  on  the  question  simply  as  to  who 
should  control  it.  It  was  a  fight  as  to  what  set  of  personal 
influences  should  have  the  precedence.  The  Republican 
party  ran  a  ticket  nominated  by  the  machine — a  ticket 
notoriously  unpopular,  every  influence  of  which  would 
be  delivered  against  Civil  Service  reform — set  up  and 
approved  by  the  arch  opponent  of  that  reform.  That  an 
administration  fully  committed  to  this  reform  should  be 
compelled,  for  the  sake  of  consolidating  its  party  and 
keeping  it  in  harmony  for  its  next  year's  work,  to  labor 
for  the  success  of  this  ticket,  was  the  most  disgusting  and 
humiliating  dish  of  political  crow  that  any  administration 
was  ever  called  upon  to  cat.  Voting,  in  these  last  years, 
has  become  simply  a  choice  of  evils.  Men  have  party 
preferences,  and  desire  to  see  their  party  succeed.  They 
find  themselves  hampered,  however,  by  the  machine, 
with  never  a  good  ticket ;  and  in  their  votes  they  nomi- 
nally approve  of  men  and  methods  which  are  offensive  or 
unsatisfactory  to  them.  So  true  is  this,  that  Mr.  Evarts 
will  be  obliged  to  look  among  the  "  scratchers,"  whom 
he  taunted  with  "  voting  ia  the  air,"  for  the  indorsement 
of  that  part  of  the  message  of  his  chief  which  is  devoted 
to  the  matter  of  Civil  Service  reform. 

Congress  can  do  no  better  work  than  in  keeping  alive, 
by  a  generous  and  just  appropriation,  the  Civil  Service 
Commission,  established  several  years  ago.  It  seems 
that,  notwithstanding  the  practical  suspension  of  the 
presiding  Commission,  examinations  have  been  kept  up 
at  various  points,  and  especially  in  New  York,  with  the 
very  happiest  results.     We  say  Congress  can  do  no  be; 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Reforms.      315 

ter  work  than  this,  for  it  is  in  the  line  of  poUtical  purity 
and  departmental  efficiency.  The  obstructionists  can 
have  no  hope  that  this  reform  is  going  backward.  They 
may  find  a  Grant  who  will  grow  lukewarm  in  their  favor, 
or  a  Conkling  to  cook  crow  for  his  own  party,  but  these 
will  prove  to  be  only  temporary  advantages.  The  reform 
is  based  upon  right.  It  is  on  the  side  of  a  sound  busi- 
ness policy  in  public  administration.  It  has  the  good 
will  of  good  and  unselfish  men.  It  is  only  opposed  by 
base  men — by  selfisli  men,  who  have  something  to  make 
out  of  the  bestowal  of  office  as  a  political  or  personal 
favor.  The  people  believe  in  it,  and  the  people  will 
have  it — if  not  by  this  Congress  and  this  administration, 
then  by  others,  some  time  and  soon. 

A  Hopeful  Lesson. 

Our  Northern  people  have  a  great  deal  of  impatience 
with  the  manner  in  which  the  Southerner  treats  the 
negro,  and  all  those  who  teach  or  specially  befriend  him. 
They  cannot  appreciate,  or  admit,  the  fact  that  the 
Southerner  can  be  conscientious  in  this  treatment,  and 
that  he  may  honestly  and  earnestly  believe  that  he  is 
doing  God  and  his  country  good  service  in  keeping  the 
negro  from  his  vote,  and  even  bulldozing  or  shooting 
him  to  secure  that  end.  We  know  that  Southern  men 
who  stand  well  in  the  Church  have  said,  with  all  hearti- 
ness and  without  any  apparent  question  of  conscience, 
that  it  is  better  that  a  negro  should  be  killed  than  that 
he  should  be  permitted  to  vote.  That  multitudes  of 
them  have  been  killed  in  order  to  kceji  them,  and  scare 
others,  from  the  polls,  seems  to  be  a  notorious  fact,  that 
is  testified  to  by  innumerable  living  witnesses.  To  at- 
tribute this  awful  outrage  exclusively  to  inhumanity, 
brutality,  and  blood-thirstiness  is  to  fail  utterly  to  ap' 


3iG  Every -Day   Topics, 

predate  the  situation.  The  Southerner  is  tremendously 
in  earnest  in  his  hatred  of  the  North  and  its  ideas,  and 
in  his  belief  that  to  proscribe  the  negro  is  to  save  South- 
ern society  from  the  greatest  peril  that  can  befall  it. 
Love  of  home,  of  children,  of  posterity  even,  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  motives  in  the  perpetration  of  wrongs 
upon  the  black  race  which  fill  the  Northern  mind  with 
horror  and  indignation. 

We  have  a  lesson  at  hand  which  may  perhaps  give 
our  Northern  people  a  charitable  view  of  the  Southern 
sentiment,  and  inspire  them  with  hope  of  a  great  and 
radical  change.  We  draw  this  from  a  work  recently  is- 
sued by  the  author.  Miss  Ellen  D.  Larned,  which  seems 
to  be  a  careful,  candid,  and  competent  history  of  Wind- 
ham County,  Connecticut.  It  appears  that,  in  183:, 
Miss  Prudence  Crandall,  a  spirited,  well-known,  and 
popular  resident  of  the  county,  started  a  school  for  girls 
at  Canterbury  Green.  The  school  was  popular,  and  wa3 
attended  not  only  by  girls  from  the  best  families  in  the 
immediate  region,  but  by  others  from  other  counties  and 
other  States.  Among  these  pupils  she  received  a  colored 
girl.  She  was  at  once  told  by  the  parents  of  the  white 
children  that  the  colored  girl  must  be  dismissed,  or  that 
their  girls  would  be  withdrawn  from  her  establishment. 
Miss  Crandall  must  have  been  a  delightfully  plucky 
woman,  for  she  defied  her  patrons,  sent  all  their  chil- 
dren back  to  them,  and  advertised  her  school  as  a  board- 
ing-school for  "  young  ladies  and  little  misses  of  color." 
Of  course  the  people  felt  themselves  to  be  insulted,  and 
they  organized  resistance.  They  appointed  a  committee 
of  gentlemen  to  hold  an  interview  with  Miss  Crandall, 
and  to  remonstrate  with  her.  But  that  sturdy  person 
justified  her  course  and  stood  by  her  scheme,  as  well  she 
might.  It  was  her  business,  and  it  was  none  of  theirs. 
The    excitement   in    the    town  was  without   bounds.     A 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      317 

town-meeting  was  hastily  summoned  "  to  devise  and 
adopt  such  measures  as  would  effectually  avert  the  nui- 
sance, or  speedily  abate  it,  if  it  should  be  brought  into 
the  village." 

In  1833,  Miss  Crandall  opened  her  school,  against  the 
protest  of  an  indignant  populace,  who,  after  the  usual 
habit  of  a  Yankee  town,  called  and  held  another  town- 
meeting,  at  which  it  was  resolved  : 

"  That  the  establishment  or  rendezvous,  falsely  denominated  a 
school,  was  designed  by  its  projectors  as  the  theatre  ...  to 
promulgate  their  disgusting  doctrines  of  amalgamation  and  their 
pernicious  sentiments  of  subverting  the  Union.  These  pupils 
were  to  have  been  congregated  here  from  all  quarters,  under  th  •. 
false  pretence  of  educating  them,  but  really  to  scatter  fire-brands, 
arrows,  and  death  among  brethren  of  our  own  blood." 

Let  us  remember  that  all  this  ridiculous  disturbance 
was  made  about  a  dozen  little  darkey  girls,  incapable  of 
any  seditious  design,  and  impotent  to  do  any  sort  of 
mischief.  Against  one  of  these  little  girls  the  people 
levelled  an  old  vagrant  law,  requiring  her  to  return  to 
her  home  in  Providence,  or  give  security  for  her  main- 
tenance, on  penalty  of  being  "  whipped  on  the  naked 
body."     At  this  time,  as  the  author  says  : 

"  Canterbury  did  its  best  to  make  scholars  and  teachers  uncom- 
fortable. Non-intercourse  and  embargo  acts  were  put  in  suc- 
cessful operation.  Dealers  in  all  sorts  of  wares  and  produce 
agreed  to  sell  nothing  to  Miss  Crandall,  the  stage-driver  declined 
to  carry  her  pupils,  and  neighbors  refused  a  pail  of  fresh  water, 
even  though  they  knew  that  their  own  sons  had  filled  her  well  with 
stable  refuse.  Boys  and  rowdies  were  allowed  unchecked — if  not 
openly  encouraged — to  exercise  their  utmost  ingenuity  in  mis- 
chievous annoyance,  throwing  real  stones  and  rotten  eggs  at  the 
windows,  and  following  the  school  with  hoots  and  horns  if  it  ven- 
tured to  appear  in  the  street." 


3 1 8  Every- Day   Topics. 

Miss  Crandall's  Quaker  father  was  threatened  with 
mob  violence,  and  was  so  terrified  that  he  begged  his 
daughter  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  popular  sentiment ; 
but  she  was  braver  than  he,  and  stood  by  herself  and 
her  school.  Then  Canterbury  appealed  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  did  not  appeal  in  vain.  A  statute,  designed 
to  meet  the  case,  was  enacted,  which  the  inhabitants  re- 
ceived with  pealing  bells  and  booming  cannon,  and 
"  every  demonstration  of  popular  delight  and  triumph." 
This  law  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Miss  Crandall's  fa- 
ther and  mother,  in  the  following  choice  note  from  two 
of  their  fellow-citizens : 

"  Mr.  Crandall,  if  you  go  to  your  daughter's,  you  are  to  be 
fined  $ioo  for  the  first  offence,  $200  for  the  second,  and  double  it 
every  time.  Mrs.  Crandall,  if  you  go  there,  you  will  be  fined, 
and  your  daughter  Alinira  will  be  fined,  and  Mr.  May  and  those 
gentlemen  from  Providence  (Messrs.  George  and  Henry  Benson), 
if  they  come  here,  will  be  fined  at  the  same  rate.  And  your 
daughter,  the  one  that  has  established  the  school  for  colored  fe- 
males, will  be  taken  up  the  same  way  as  for  stealing  a  horse,  or 
for  burglary.  Her  property  will  not  be  taken,  but  she  will  be  put 
in  jail,  not  having  the  liberty  of  the  yard.  There  is  no  mercy  to 
be  shown  about  it." 

Soon  afterward,  Miss  Crandall  was  arrested  and  taken 
to  jail.  Her  trial  resulted  in  her  release,  but  her  estab- 
lishment was  persecuted  by  every  ingenuity  of  cruel  in- 
sult. She  and  her  school  were  shut  out  from  attendance 
at  the  Congregational  church,  and  religious  services  held 
in  her  own  house  were  interrupted  by  volleys  of  rotten 
eggs  and  other  missiles.  The  house  was  then  set  on  fire. 
The  fire  was  extinguished,  and  in  1834,  on  the  9th  of 
September,  just  as  the  family  were  going  to  bed,  a  body 
of  men  surrounded  the  house  silently,  and  then,  with 
iron  bars,  simultaneously  beat  in  the  windows.  This, 
of  course,  was  too  much  for  the  poor  women  and  girls. 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Reforms.      319 

Miss  Crandall  herself  quailed  before  this  manifestation 
of  ruffianly  hatred,  and  the  brave  woman  broke  up  her 
school  and  sent  her  pupils  home.  Then  the  people  held 
another  town-meeting,  and  passed  resolutions  justifying 
themselves  and  praising  the  Legislature  for  passing  the 
law  for  which  they  had  asked. 

All  this  abominable  outrage  was  perpetrated  in  the 
sober  State  of  Connecticut,  within  the  easy  memory  of 
the  writer  of  this  article.  It  reads  like  a  romance  from 
the  dark  ages,  yet  these  people  of  Canterbury  were  good 
people,  who  were  so  much  in  earnest  in  suppressing 
what  they  believed  to  be  a  great  wrong,  that  they  were 
willing  to  be  cruel  toward  one  of  the  best  and  bravest 
women  in  their  State,  and  to  resort  to  mob  violence,  to 
rid  themselves  of  an  institution  whose  only  office  was  to 
elevate  the  poor  black  children  who  had  little  chance  of 
elevation  elsewhere.  Now  this  outrage  seems  just  as  im- 
possible to  the  people  of  Canterbury  to-day  as  it  does 
to  us.  The  new  generation  has  grown  clean  away  from 
it,  and  grown  away  from  it  so  far  that  a  school  of  little 
colored  girls  would,  we  doubt  not,  be  welcomed  there 
now  as  a  praiseworthy  and  very  interesting  institution. 
The  Connecticut  girls  who  go  South  to  teach  in  colored 
schools  should  remember  or  recall  the  time  when  they 
would  not  have  been  tolerated  in  their  work  in  their  own 
State,  and  be  patient  with  the  social  proscription  that 
meets  them  to-day.  The  world  moves  ;  the  old  genera- 
tion passes  away  ;  the  new  generation  strikes  in  ahead, 
and  the  time  can  hardly  be  far  distant  when  the  negro 
will  find  himself  at  home  in  the  South.  When  the 
white  man  learns  that  a  "  solid  South,"  made  solid  by 
shutting  the  negro  from  his  vote,  makes  always  a  solid 
North,  and  that  the  solid  North  always  means  defeat,  it 
will  cease  to  be  solid,  and  then  the  negro's  vote  will  be 
wanted  by  two  parties,  and  his  wrong  will  be    righted. 


320  Evcry-Day   Topics. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  sketch  of  Northern  history,  we 
can  at  least  be  charitable  toward  the  South,  and  abun- 
dantly hopeful  concerning  the  future. 

The  Shadow  of  the  Negro. 

The  history  of  negro  slavery,  extending  from  its  begin- 
ning in  Portugal  over  a  period  of  four  hundred  years, 
and  involving  the  exportation  by  violence  from  their 
African  homes  of  forty  millions  of  men,  women  and 
children,  is  one  of  exceeding  and  unimaginable  bitter- 
ness. It  is  too  late  to  criminate  those  who  were  respon- 
sible for  beginning  the  slave  trade,  and  for  perpetuating 
the  system  of  bondage  that  grew  out  of  it.  Many  of 
them  were  conscientious,  Christian  men,  who  worked 
without  a  thought  of  the  wrong  they  were  doing.  Some 
of  them,  as  we  know,  really  believed  they  were  benefit- 
ing the  negro,  by  bringing  him  out  of  a  condition  of  bar- 
barism into  the  enlightening  and  purifying  influences  of 
Christianity.  For  many  years  negro  slavery  prevailed 
in  this  country,  and  greatly  modified  the  institutions 
and  the  civilization  of  a  large  portion  of  it.  It  became, 
at  last,  the  exciting  cause  of  the  greatest  civil  war  known 
in  the  history  of  the  world  ;  and  when  that  war  brought 
abolition,  it  gave  to  the  black  race  in  America  not  only 
freedom,  but  citizenship.  The  question  as  to  what  all 
these  centuries  of  wrong  and  of  servitude  have  done  for 
the  negro  is  not  a  difficult  one  to  answer,  but  what  they 
have  done  for  the  enslaving  race  is  not  so  evident  with- 
out an  examination.  The  black  man  has  been  a  menial 
so  long  that  he  has  lost,  in  a  great  degree,  his  sense  of 
manhood  and  his  power  to  assert  it.  The  negro  carries 
within  him  the  sense  that  his  blood  is  tainted — that  he  is 
something  less  than  a  man,  in  consequence  of  the  black- 
ness of  his  skin.     lie  may  be  whitened  out,  so  that  only 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      321 

the  most  practised  eye  can  detect  a  trace  of  the  African 
in  him,  but  the  consciousness  of  the  possession  of  this 
trace  haunts  him  like  the  memory  of  a  crime,  and  to 
charge  it  upon  him  is  to  abase  him  and  cover  him  with 
a  burning  shame.  The  readiness  of  the  negro,  in  all  the 
States,  to  be  content  with  menial  offices  in  the  service 
of  the  white  man,  comes  undoubtedly  from  the  fact 
that  such  offices  relieve  him  from  all  antagonism.  They 
put  him  in  a  position  free  from  the  pretension  to 
equality,  where  he  is  at  peace.  We  hear  it  said  that 
the  negro  is  a  natural  menial — a  natural  servant — but 
the  truth  is  that,  if  the  negro  were  only  relieved  from 
the  burden  of  contempt  in  which  his  blood  is  held,  his 
special  adaptation  to  menial  work  would  disappear  at 
once. 

The  harm  that  slavery  did  to  the  white  man  was  one 
that  touched  him  internally  and  externally,  at  most  im- 
portant points.  It  vitiated  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
Through  its  appeal  to  his  interests,  it  made  a  system 
based  in  inhumanity  and  standing  and  working  in  direct 
contravention  of  the  Golden  Rule,  seem  to  be  a  humane 
and  Christian  institution,  to  be  maintained  by  argument, 
by  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  and  by  the  sword. 
This,  of  course,  was  an  immeasurable  harm,  from  which 
only  a  slow  recovery  can  be  reached.  Another  evil  re- 
sult of  slavery  to  the  white  man  was  the  disgrace  that 
came  to  labor  through  its  long  years  of  association  with 
servitude.  No  people  can  be  prosperous  who  despise 
labor,  and  who  look  upon  it  as  something  that  belongs 
only  to  a  servile  class.  Any  people  that,  for  any  cause, 
have  lost  the  sense  of  the  supreme  respectability  of  labor 
— any  people  that,  for  any  cause,  have  come  to  regard  an 
unproductive  idleness  as  desirable  and  respectable,  have 
met  with  an  immeasurable  misfortune.  The  shadow  of 
the  negro  not  only  rests  upon  the  white  man's  sense  of 
14* 


322  Every -Day   Topics. 

right,  not  only  on  the  white  man's  idea  of  labor,  but 
upon  his  love  of  fair  play.  There  is  something  most 
unmanly  in  the  disposition  to  deny  any  man  who  has  not 
harmed  us  a  fair  chance  in  the  world.  Are  we,  all  over 
this  nation,  giving  the  negro  a  fair  chance  ?  It  was  not 
his  fault  that  he  was  born  to  slavery.  It  was  not  his  act 
that  released  him  from  it.  Notwithstanding  all  his  years 
of  servitude  and  wrong,  he  did  not  revolt  when  his  op- 
portunity came,  but  bore  his  yoke  with  patience  until  it 
was  lifted  from  his  shoulders.  He  did  not  wrest  from 
unwilling  hands  his  boon  of  citizenship.  Now,  however, 
as  we  look  into  our  hearts,  we  find  that  political  rights 
were  conferr-^d  upon  him  rather  from  an  abstract  sense 
of  justice  than  for  any  love  of  the  negro,  or  any  equal 
place  that  we  have  made  for  him  in  our  hearts  and  heads 
as  he  stands  by  our  side.  The  North,  to-day,  is  true  to 
the  negro  rather  in  its  convictions  than  in  its  sympathies. 
It  never  in  its  heart  has  admitted  the  negro  to  equality 
with  the  white  man.  It  may  consent  to  see  the  white 
man  beaten  by  the  negro  in  a  walking-match  at  Gil- 
more's  Garden,  but  at  West  Point  the  smallest  measure 
of  African  blood  places  its  possessor  under  the  cruellest 
and  most  implacable  social  ban.  So  long  as  this  fact 
exists — so  long  as  the  Northern  v/hite  man  utterly  ex- 
cludes the  negro  from  his  social  sympathies,  and  refuses 
to  give  him  a  fair  chance  in  the  world  to  secure  respecta- 
bility and  influence,  it  poorly  becomes  him  to  rail  at  his 
Southern  brothers  who  do  the  same  thing,  and  are  only 
a  little  more  logical  and  extreme  in  their  expressions  of 
contempt.  The  shadow  of  the  negro  lies  upon  the  North 
as  upon  the  South.  It  has  obscured  or  blotted  out  our 
love  of  fair  play.  We  do  not  give  the  negro  a  chance. 
It  was  recently  stated  in  one  of  our  metropolitan  pulpits, 
by  a  minister  of  wide  experience  and  observation,  that 
he  had  never  heard  in  any  country  better  speeches  made 


Social  Fads,  Forces  and  Reforms.      323 

than  were  recently  made  in  this  city  by  four  colored 
men,  who  spoke  on  behalf  of  the  freedmen.  He  gave 
them  the  highest  place  in  all  the  powers  and  qualities 
that  go  into  the  making  of  eloquence.  At  Hampton,  the 
negro  is  proving  himself  to  be  not  only  most  susceptible 
to  cultivation,  but  to  be  possessed  of  a  high  spirit  of  self- 
devotion.  Under  the  charm  of  this  most  useful  institu- 
tion the  African  ceases  to  be  a  "  nigger,"  and  achieves  a 
self-respect  and  a  sense  of  manhood  that  prepare  him  for 
the  great  missionary  work  of  elevating  his  race.  It  can- 
not be  disputed  that  the  great  obstacle  that  stands  to- 
day in  the  way  of  the  negro  is  the  white  man.  North  and 
South.  The  white  man  in  this  country  is  not  yet  ready  to 
treat  the  negro  as  a  man.  The  prejudice  of  race  is  still 
dominant  in  every  part  of  the  land.  We  are  quite  ready 
in  New  York  City  to  invite  Indians  in  paint  and  feathers 
into  social  circles,  from  which  the  negro  is  shut  out  by  a 
social  interdict  as  irreversible  as  the  laws  of  the  Mcdcs 
and  Persians.  If  the  negro  is  a  man,  let  us  give  him  the 
chance  of  a  man,  the  powers  and  privileges  of  a  man. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  give  him  our  daughters  in 
marriage,  although  he  has  given  a  good  many  of  his 
daughters  to  us,  as  all  mulattodom  and  quadroondom 
abundantly  testify.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  make 
an  ostentatious  show  of  our  conversion  to  just  and  hu- 
mane ideas  in  regard  to  him.  We  should  like  to  see  the 
time  when  the  preacher  to  whom  we  have  alluded  would 
feel  at  liberty  to  invite  one  of  these  orators  whom  he 
praised  to  occupy  his  pulpit,  and  when  such  an  orator 
would  feel  at  home  there  and  seem  at  home  there. 
When  this  time  arrives,  in  the  coming  of  the  millen- 
nium, all  other  relations  between  the  two  races  may  be 
safely  left  to  adjust  themselves. 


324  Every -Day   Topics. 


The  Political  Machine, 

It  is  readily  observable  that  the  protests  against  the 
political  machine  and  the  efforts  on  behalf  of  civil-ser- 
vice reform,  as  a  practical  outcome  of  that  protest,  orig- 
inate in  the  cities.  People  in  the  country  follow  their 
political  leaders,  without  serious  question,  and  do  not 
come  much  into  contact  with  the  bad  results  which  they 
do  so  much  to  secure.  The  one  or  two  men  in  each  town 
who  are  relied  upon  at  head-quarters  to  do  the  party 
work,  get  office,  it  is  true,  but  that  seems  to  be  because 
they  are  "  fond  of  politics  ;  "  and  as  the  office  has  so 
long  been  the  reward  of  party  work,  it  is  looked  upon  as 
quite  the  regular  and  legitimate  thing.  The  city  is  al- 
most the  only  place  where  the  authority  of  the  political 
leader  is  questioned.  He  looks  to  the  country  towns  for 
loyalty  to  his  policy  and  decrees,  and  relies  upon  them 
to  carry  his  ends  in  the  State.  The  managing  men  of 
the  small  towns  are  always  in  confidential  correspond- 
ence with  head-quarters,  and  their  work  is  done  so 
quietly  and  cleverly  that  the  country  voter  is  never  made 
to  feel  the  yoke,  or  led  to  suspect  that  he  is  the  tool  of 
a  corrupt  cabal  of  office-holders  and  office-seekers. 

In  the  city,  especially  the  great  city,  the  machinery 
comes  more  to  the  surface.  Here  we  find  a  class  of 
professional  politicians.  Their  business  is  politics. 
There  may  be  some,  above  them,  who  are  working  for 
power,  without  any  thought  of  office,  but  they  know  that 
every  man  under  them  is  at  work  for  what  he  can  make 
out  of  the  business.  Some  work  with  very  small  aspira- 
tions and  expectations.  There  are  wheels  within  wheels, 
and  there  are  those  who  work  for  so  small  a  consideration 
as  their  drink.  They  furnish  the  machinery  of  all  elec- 
tions.    They  attend  and  manage  the  primary  elections 


Social  Facts,  Forces  and  Reforms.      325 

and  caucuses.  They  do  the  party  work,  and  will  permit 
no  one  else  to  do  it.  Good  men  are  often  reproached 
with  their  neglect  of  political  duty,  especially  as  it  re- 
lates to  what  are  called  "  the  primaries."  The  reply  to 
this  reproach  is  that  no  good  man  can  undertake  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  primaries  unless  he  belongs  to 
*'  the  machine,"  without  the  loss  of  self-respect.  Indeed, 
all  attempt  to  have  anything  to  do  with  them,  in  the 
way  of  influencing  their  policy  and  results,  is  useless. 
If  any  clear-headed  gentleman  doubts  this,  let  him  try 
it.  He  only  needs  to  do  this  once  to  be  convinced.  It 
has  been  tried  many  times,  and  always  unsuccessfully. 
Even  in  our  Statcn  Island  suburb,  the  machine  has 
proved  too  strong  for  our  excellent  friend,  Mr.  George 
W.  Curtis,  and  will  have  none  of  him.  It  has  been  tried 
here  in  the  city.  The  moment  a  good  man  enters  a 
meeting  where  a  primary  is  held,  the  whole  crowd  know 
him. 

The  latest  instance  reported  to  us  was  by  the  victim 
himself.  lie  had  been  reproached  for  neglecting  his 
duty,  so  he  was  moved  to  do  it.  He  attended  a  primary, 
and  found  the  leaders  in  consultation  in  a  private  room. 
His  position  was  such  that  they  could  not  deny  him  en- 
trance, and  they  immediately  informed  him  that  he  must 
act  as  chairman.  He  protested  that  he  wished  to  be  at 
liberty  to  speak  to  such  questions  as  might  arise.  The 
protest  was  hushed  by  the  assurance  that  if  he  wished  to 
speak  he  could  call  some  one  else  to  the  chair.  The 
meeting  was  called  to  order,  and  he  was  elected.  Im- 
mediately a  man  jumped  to  his  feet  and  moved  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  list  of  delegates  to  a  certain  convention, 
and  the  "■  question"  was  called  from  all  parts  of  the  house. 
Our  virtuous  chairman  was  caught  in  a  trap,  and  had  to 
put  the  question.  As  soon  as  it  was  decided,  as  it  was 
luiii.  coil,  in  favor  of  the  nominations,  another  member 


326  Every -Day   Topics. 

rose  and  moved  that  the  meeting  should  immediatelj 
adjourn,  as  the  weather  was  warm !  So  our  friend  had 
his  labor  for  his  pains,  and  the  men  who  had  used  him 
took  great  pleasure  in  showing  how  respectable  their 
meeting  was  by  publishing  his  name  as  its  chairman, 
and  thus  doing  what  they  could  to  make  him  seem  to 
approve  a  list  of  political  scalawags  ! 

"  But  if  all  good  men  would  unite,  they  could  have 
their  own  way."  That  is  a  mistake.  If  all  good  men 
would  unite,  all  bad  men  would  do  the  same,  and  the 
bad  men  would  draw  for  voters  to  help  them  through, 
from  all  parts  of  the  city,  as  there  would  be  nothing  ille- 
gal in  outsiders  voting  at  a  primary.  It  is  their  business 
to  outvote  the  good  men,  and  they  do  it  every  time,  be- 
cause they  have  the  whole  machine  of  the  city  to  do  it 
with,  and  have  no  scruples  to  stand  in  their  way,  such  as 
the  good  men  have.  Now  doour  country  friends  see  the 
point  at  which  we  are  aiming,  when  we  advocate  a  re- 
form in  the  civil  service  ?  Can  they  not  see  that  just  so 
long  as  office  is  the  reward  of  party  work,  just  so  long 
party  work  will  and  must  be  done  by  office-seekers,  who 
work  for  their  party  from  the  basest  motives  ?  Politics 
can  never  be  purified  in  this  country  until  there  is  a  re- 
form in  the  civil  service.  Such  purification  is  practically 
impossible,  until  office  ceases  to  be  the  reward,  practi- 
cally contracted  for,  of  party  service. 

Political  Training. 

It  is  the  general  conviction  that,  sooner  or  later,  we 
are  to  have  a  reform  in  our  Civil  Service.  It  is  more 
than  this.  There  is  a  general  determination  that  there 
shall  be  such  a  reform.  The  fair  and  sensible  men  of 
all  parties — all  men  who  are  not  given  over  to  partisan- 
ship—  all  men  who  have  ceased  to  believe  that  politics  is 


Social  Facis^   Forces  and  Reforms.      327 

a  trade,  to  be  pursued  for  personal  gain,  irrespective  of 
the  public  good — believe  in  this  reform,  and  look  for- 
ward hopefully,  and  even  impatiently,  to  the  time  of  its 
accomplishment.  But  the  question  concerning  men  and 
materials  for  this  reform  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred 
to  these  people.  The  fact  that  there  is  no  competent 
school  for  the  preparation  of  men  for  public  life,  is  one 
which  does  not  seem  to  have  presented  itself  to  them. 

At  present,  men  enter  upon  nearly  every  sphere  of 
public  life  without  the  slightest  special  preparation  for 
it.  If  a  man  can  make  a  fair  speech,  if  he  is  an  adept 
at  the  pulling  of  wires,  if  by  any  tact  in  organization  and 
in  the  working  of  party  machinery  in  local  elections  he 
manages  to  win  a  degree  of  power  and  prominence,  he 
becomes  a  candidate  for  office.  He  may  know  nothing 
whatever  of  the  political  history  of  his  country,  or  of 
other  countries.  He  may  lack  intelligence  in  all  the 
great  questions  of  political  economy.  He  may  even  fail 
in  a  competent  understanding  of  the  issues  involved  in 
his  own  election.  If  he  goes  to  Congress,  he  is  simply 
placed  at  school,  and  is  supported  at  the  public  charge. 
By  the  time  he  is  well  in  his  seat,  and  has  become  fitted 
for  service,  some  other  demagogue,  as  ignorant  as  he 
was  at  first,  supersedes  him,  and  he  retires.  He  goes  to 
Congress  in  the  first  place,  not  because  he  is  fit  for  its 
duties,  but  because  he  wants  the  office,  and  manages  to 
get  it.  He  retires  as  soon  as  he  has  learned  something, 
that  another  ignoramus,  who  has  outmanaged  him  at 
home,  may  receive  an  education  at  the  public  expense. 

These  statements  are  so  well  established  in  the  politi- 
cal history  of  the  country  and  the  time,  that  they  cannot 
be  disputed.  And  here  the  question  naturally  arises 
concerning  the  preparation  of  the  country  for  the  reform 
which  it  would  so  gladly  see  effected.  Where  are  we  to 
find  the  men  who  have  made  politics,  in  all  its  scientific 


328  Every-Day   Topics. 

and  practical  departments,  a  long  and  careful  study  ? 
What  shall  the  new  requirements  be  ?  and  how  shall  we 
train  men  to  meet  them  ?  Have  we  already  a  body  of 
men,  sufficiently  large  and  sufficiently  conversant  with 
scientific  and  practical  politics,  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  a  reform  ?  We  fear  that  this  last  question 
must  be  answered  in  the  negative,  and  must  continue  to 
be  so  answered  until  some  means  are  established  to  train 
men  for  the  public  service. 

We  have  our  military  and  naval  schools  for  training 
men  for  the  army  and  navy.  After  their  graduation, 
they  may  go  into  civil  life,  but,  in  time  of  war,  they  are 
the  first  we  call  upon  to  organize  and  lead  the  forces  of 
the  country.  They  alone  truly  understand  the  business. 
They  have  been  instructed  in  all  the  details  of  organiza- 
tion, subsistence,  engineering,  and  active  war.  Now,  we 
cannot  understand  why  the  men  engaged  in  legislation 
and  administration — in  the  civil  service  of  the  Govern- 
ment— do  not  need  as  careful  a  training  as  those  who  are 
called  to  its  military  and  naval  service.  The  knowledge 
demanded  covers  a  wider  fiield.  The  principles  involved 
are  a  thousand  times  more  complex.  International  law 
and  polity,  political  economy,  finance,  the  relations  of 
the  Federal  Government  to  the  States,  the  relations  of  the 
States  to  each  other,  constitutional  history  and  constitu- 
tional law,  diplomacy,  and  a  vast  aggregate  of  recorded 
usage  and  technical  detail — all  these  need  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  men  in  office.  How  are  men  to  be  grounded 
in  the  principles  of  government,  and  to  acquire  even 
the  elements  of  this  vast  range  of  knowledge  ?  At  pres- 
ent, the  only  education  we  give  them  is  in  active  service. 
We  are  not  only  at  the  expense  of  their  subsistence  and 
tuition,  but  we  are  at  the  still  greater  expense  of  their 
blunders. 

Well,  we  do  not  propose  another  West  Point,  or  an- 


Social  Facts,   Forces  and  Refor'tns.      329 

other  Annapolis.  It  would  not  be  well,  we  presume,  to 
establish  a  governmental  school  of  politics.  There  are 
insuperable  objections  in  the  way.  The  partisans  of  free 
trade  and  protection,  for  instance,  could  never  agree  on 
the  style  of  political  economy  to  be  taught.  But  there 
is  no  good  reason  why  Yale  and  Harvard,  or  any  other 
college,  for  that  matter,  should  not  have  a  department 
of  politics,  which  should  give  a  solid  three  years*  course 
of  study.  There  is  no  reason  why  a  man  should  not  go 
before  a  high  examining  board  at  Washington,  from  such 
a  school  as  this,  and  win  his  certificate  of  fitness  for  pub- 
lic office.  There  are  a  thousand  good  reasons  why  such 
a  man  should  receive  the  suffrages  of  the  people  for  any 
office  which  they  wish  to  fill. 

Aside  from  all  direct  influence  upon  governmental  leg- 
islation and  administration,  the  effect  of  the  training 
which  such  a  school  would  give  would  exercise  a  most 
beneficent  influence  upon  the  country.  If  the  men  who 
are  trained  there  never  enter  office,  they  will  add  to  the 
popular  intelligence,  and  raise  the  public  standard  and 
the  public  tone.  They  will  not  only  help  to  leaven  the 
mass,  but  they  will  place  the  Government  under  intelli- 
gent criticism.  Under  their  iailuence,  the  demagogue 
would  be  subjected  to  a  fearful  discount.  Their  pres- 
ence in  public  affairs  and  their  distribution  throughout 
the  country  would,  of  themselves,  do  much  to  reform  a 
service  that  has  sunk  into  deserved  contempt.  Ignorant 
men  would  be  ashamed  to  show  themselves  in  such  a 
light.  The  simple  establishment  of  such  a  school  would 
call  the  attention  of  the  public  to  the  gross  abuses  from 
which  they  have  suffered,  and  they  would  be  glad  to  be 
represented  by  men  who  would  not  only  serve  the  coun- 
try well,  but  would  honor  them. 

There  is  still  another  view  to  be  taken  of  this  matter. 
We  can  imai^ine  no  trainintr  to  be  more  fruitful  in  its 


330  Every -Day   Topics. 

solid  culture  to  young  men  of  means  than  this  would  be. 
Neither  law  nor  medicine  nor  theology  offers  to  the 
young  man  who  does  not  wish  to  enter  those  professions, 
and  who  is  not  content  with  his  accomplished  academic 
course,  so  fine  a  field  for  useful  culture  as  this  school 
would  afford,  and  we  believe  it  would  be  thronged  with 
students  from  the  best  classes  of  society.  What  better 
can  be  given  to  a  young  man  than  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  statesmanship  and  citizenship  ?  It  would  be  better 
than  travel ;  it  would  furnish  a  splendid  basis  for  literary 
life  and  literary  acquisition.  It  would  fit  and  furnish 
him  for  society. 

So,  whether  we  look  at  such  a  school,  with  its  regu- 
larly established  corps  of  professors  and  its  great  cur- 
riculum, as  a  training-school  for  politicians,  statesmen 
and  diplomatists,  or  as  a  means  of  popular  instruction 
and  elevation,  or  as  a  minister  to  individual  culture,  it 
is  in  every  way  desirable.  What  institution  will  be  the 
first  to  inaugurate  it  ?  What  institution  will  first  spring 
to  satisfy  the  need  of  a  great  reform,  and  furnish  the 
country  with  a  means  of  culture  so  devoutly  to  be 
prayed  for  ? 

A  Reform   in  the  Civil  Service. 

We  have  several  times  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the 
small  influence  of  the  voting  population  of  the  country, 
in  the  shaping  of  political  affairs.  For  half  a  century, 
two  great  political  machines  have  managed  the  voters. 
I\Ien  have  been  nominated  and  elected  to  office,  now  in 
the  interest  of  this  machine,  and  then  in  the  interest  of 
that.  Issues  have  been  made  up  between  the  machines 
and  fought  out,  but  the  decisions  which  the  votes  of  the 
people  have  aided  to  make,  whatever  they  may  have 
meant  to  the  people,  have  meant  but  one  thing  to  the 


Social  Facts^   Forces  and  Reforms.      331 

men  who  have  run  the  machine,  viz.,  office  and  that 
which  goes  with  office — power  and  patronage.  For 
these  last  fifty  years,  the  pohtics  of  the  country  have 
been  run  mainly  in  the  interest  and  by  the  power  of  two 
great  bands  of  office-holders  and  office-seekers.  The 
motives  of  pay  and  plunder  and  power  have  been  dom- 
inant. It  has  been  perfectly  well  understood  that  office 
was  the  reward  of  party  service.  The  small  politician 
who  has  done  the  dirty  work  of  the  successful  candidate 
for  Congress,  has  been  rewarded  with  a  post-office,  or  a 
clerkship,  or  a  place  in  the  custom-house.  The  more 
ambitious  have  received  consulships  or  foreign  minis- 
tries. We  have  been  disgraced  at  home  and  abroad  by 
the  appointment  of  men  lacking  every  element  of  fitness 
for  their  positions.  Politics  has  become  a  business — a 
trade. 

Now,  these  facts  are  so  notorious  and  so  shameful 
that  no  respectable  man  has  had  the  "  cheek"  to  deny 
them  or  to  justify  them.  Both  parties  have  pretended, 
in  many  ways  and  places,  to  favor  a  reform,  but  we  have 
never  had  the  slightest  belief  in  their  sincerity.  We 
mean  the  machines  when  we  speak  of  parties  ;  and  we 
have  doubted  them  simply  because  it  is  not  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  machines  to  commit  hari-kari.  The  old- 
fashioned  politician  is  a  machine-man,  always,  and  he 
knows  nothing  of  carrying  on  the  business  of  a  political 
campaign,  except  on  the  machine  principle  of  "  you 
tickle  me  ;  I  tickle  you."  So,  when,  in  the  planks  of  a 
platform  established  by  a  political  convention  of  the  old- 
fashioned  machine-men,  we  discover  one  declaring  for  a 
reform  in  the  civil  service,  we  know  that  it  means  noth- 
ing. We  know  that  the  plank  has  been  put  into  the 
platform  to  deceive  the  people  with  the  special  end  in 
view  of  strengthening  the  machine. 

It  so  happens  now  that  we  have  a  President  who  be- 


33-  Evcry-Day  Topics. 

lieves  in  a  reform  in  the  civil  service,  and  who  took  the 
platform  on  which  he  was  elected  to  his  high  office  at  its 
word.  He  is  engaged  in  carefully  and  conscientiously 
fulfilling  his  pledges.  Now  the  sincerity  of  the  machine- 
politicians  of  his  own  party  may  be  gauged  by  the  pro- 
ceedings of  a  recent  political  convention,  which  not  only 
refused  to  endorse  his  action,  but  was  at  infinite  pains  to 
insult  him  in  the  person  of  the  stanchest  and  most  influ- 
ential friend  of  his  policy.  Mr.  George  William  Curtis 
happens  to  think  that  there  is  something  in  American 
politics  superior  to  the  machine.  He  is  not  only  not  an 
office-seeker,  but  he  is  a  man  who  is  known  to  have  de- 
clined high  office  in  the  hope  of  serving  his  country  better 
on  the  platform  and  by  the  press.  The  history  of  that 
convention,  in  its  slavish  and  brutal  subserviency  to  the 
policy  and  will  of  a  single  machine-politician,  is  one  of 
the  most  disgraceful  in  our  annals  ;  but  it  betrays  the 
real  spirit  of  the  machine,  and  ought  to  be  very  useful  to 
the  people  of  the  country.  The  machine-man  spits  upon 
reform  and  reformer  alike.  All  the  machine-men  hate 
reform,  simply  because  reform  is  death  to  them.  Mr. 
Conkling  cannot  possibly  love  Mr.  Curtis,  but  Mr.  Cur- 
tis will  be  sufficiently  comforted  by  the  respect  and  af- 
fection of  all  the  good  people  of  the  country  whose 
good  opinion  of  the  machine  has  died  out.  He  may 
further  be  comforted  in  the  fact  that,  whoever  may 
own  the  present,  the  future  is  his  ;  for  this  is  a  question 
that  can  never  be  eliminated  from  the  politics  of  the 
country,  until  it  has  achieved  a  sweeping  and  per- 
manent triumph.  No  man  who  believes  in  national 
progress  can  fail  to  believe  in  a  reform  in  the  civil 
service. 

How  is  this  reform  to  be  brought  about  ?  Let  us  give 
up  all  thought  that  it  will,  or  can,  be  accomplished  by 
the   political  machine.     The    professional   politician    of 


Social  Facts ^   Forces  and  Reforms.      333 

the  old  or  the  present  school,  the  machine-man  who  be- 
lieves in  him,  the  party  press  which  supports  him — 
these  will  do  nothing.  Worse  than  this  :  when  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  reform,  and  made  to  declare  them- 
selves, they  will  give  us  another  Rochester  Convention — 
bitter,  malignant,  disgraceful. 

There  is  a  large  section  of  the  American  press  which 
has  no  affiliation  with  the  machine.  Happily,  this  ques- 
tion of  civil-service  reform  may  be  regarded  as  out- 
side of  the  pale  of  party  politics.  Both  the  political 
machines  have  undertaken  to  manage  it,  with  the  hope 
of  ultimately  killing  it,  and  getting  what  they  can  out  of 
it  while  it  is  dying.  They  are  not  in  earnest  in  their 
support  of  it,  and  cannot  be,  in  the  nature  of  things. 
Happily,  we  say,  the  question  is  outside  of  party  poli- 
tics. It  is  so  by  its  nature,  and  so  by  the  fact  that  both 
parties  nominally  adopt  it  and  actually  hate  it.  It  is 
thus  lifted  out  of  the  party  fight,  and  becomes  a  question 
of  public  morals  and  of  pure  patriotism.  As  such,  it 
can  be  treated  by  every  independent  political  newspaper, 
by  every  literary  magazine  or  journal,  by  every  religious 
periodical  of  whatever  sect,  by  the  preacher  in  his  pul- 
pit, the  lecturer  upon  his  platform,  the  author  in  his 
books.  The  editor  and  the  '' magazinist "  have  been 
publicly  insulted.  If  they  have  any  right  to  speak  in 
this  matter,  it  is  time  for  them  to  assert  it. 

The  hope  of  the  country  is  in  the  development  of  a 
sentiment  among  the  voting  population  which  will  make 
it  impossible  for  the  machine  to  have  its  way.  The 
country  is  not  now  so  seriously  divided,  on  any  great 
issues,  that  it  cannot  afford  to  take  hold  of  this  reform, 
and  achieve  it  by  whatever  legitimate  machinery  it  may 
be  able  to  place  in  service.  The  reform  once  achieved, 
the  American  people  will  be  forever  free  from  the  basest 
intluences    that   enter  into  our    politics.     What    better 


334  Every -Day   Topics. 

thing  can  this  generation  do  than  to  leave  the  business 
of  the  country  in  the  hands  which  are  best  fitted  to  carry 
it  on,  to  put  in  foreign  service  men  who  will  honor  our 
country  by  their  accomplishments  and  their  high  per- 
sonal character,  and  kill  out  the  shameful  traffic  in  pub- 
lic othce  ? 


MATTERS  OF  DOMESTIC  CONCERN. 

Houses  and  Things. 

MR.  CLARENCE  COOK  has  lately  said  so  much  about 
houses,  and  the  things  that  go  to  make  them  com- 
fortable and  beautiful,  that  the  rest  of  us  have  been  glad 
to  stand  respectfully  among  the  audience,  and  let  him 
do  all  the  talking.  A  man  of  positive  ideas,  and  a 
graceful  and  forcible  way  of  expressing  them,  is  not  so 
frequently  met  with  that  we  can  afford  to  miss  even  his 
smallest  utterance.  But  Mr.  Cook  would  have  people 
think  for  themselves.  One  of  his  aims  is  to  stimulate  in- 
dependent thinking,  and  so  to  make  every  home,  in  its 
fulfilment  of  wants  and  its  expression  of  tastes,  a  fresh 
and  original  growth.  He  would  have  us  cut  loose  from 
the  conventional,  and  look  around  for  ourselves  to  find 
the  natural  and  the  picturesque.  He  would  have  us  do 
away  with  shams  and  imitations,  and  have  only  that  which 
is  honest  in  structure  and  appearance.  Specially  would 
he  teach  us  to  do  our  own  thinking. 

So  we  propose  to  think  independently  a  little,  espe- 
cially with  relation  to  certain  appointments  of  the  house 
which,  in  these  latter  days,  are  suffering  abuse,  as  it 
seems  to  us.  The  first  thing  to  be  spoken  of  is  the  car- 
pet. We  like  a  handsome  rug.  We  like  an  inlaid  fioor. 
A  handsome  rug  upon  an  inlaid  floor  is  a  beautiful  thing 
to  look  at.     In  a  warm  climate  it  is  not  only  beautiful. 


33^  Every -D.iy    Topics. 

but  fitting.  A  rug  upon  matting,  during  the  cooler 
months,  in  tropical  latitudes,  is  charming  for  many  rea- 
sons ;  but  for  our  cold  country  we  like  a  carpet — ingrain, 
Brussels,  velvet — no  matter  what — something  that  covers 
the  floor.  A  wooden  floor  needs  a  great  deal  of  service 
to  keep  it  in  presentable  condition,  and  should  be  pol- 
ished as  often  as  one's  boots,  especially  in  latitudes  where 
the  boots  have  nails  in  them.  Where  the  slipper  is  con- 
stantly worn,  it  is  a  very  different  thing.  A  hard  pol- 
ished floor,  or  a  wooden  staircase,  is  not  a  pleasant 
thing  to  walk  on.  It  is  slippery  and  noisy,  and  a  rug  is 
always  kicking  up  at  the  edges,  especially  where  there 
are  children.  We  like  a  well-carpeted  house — the 
thicker  the  carpet  the  better — especially  during  the  se- 
vere winter  months.  A  great  deal  is  said  about  carpets 
as  dust-catchers  and  disease-absorbers,  and  all  that ; 
but  we  very  much  doubt  whether  a  well-swept  and  well- 
kept  carpet  is  worse  than  a  rug,  in  any  particular.  No 
one  has  at  all  demonstrated  that  it  is  worse,  and  in  our 
climate  it  certainly  is  more  comfortable  than  any  other 
floor  surface  that  is  possible. 

Furnaces,  too,  are  abused,  and  open  fires  are  advo- 
cated. Now,  we  have  had  a  good  deal  of  experience, 
with  furnaces  not  only,  but  with  open  fires.  In  the 
first  place,  open  fires  are  incompetent  to  heat  our  houses. 
In  the  second  place,  they  are  exceedingly  dusty  ;  and  it 
somehow  happens  that  the  men  who  are  very  much  afraid 
of  the  dust  of  the  carpet  set  aside  the  dust  argument 
when  they  talk  about  open  fires.  There  is  nothing  that 
fills  either  carpets,  or  rugs,  or  atmosphere  with  dust  so 
quickly  as  the  open  fire.  The  dust  of  a  good  furnace  is 
the  dust  of  the  outside  atmosphere — no  more.  An  open 
fire  is  picturesque.  It  is  cozy  and  home-like  and  orna- 
mental ;  but  when  the  outside  temperature  is  at  zero, 
mere  picturesqueness  will  not  ansvver.      When  a  man  is 


Matters  of  Domestic  Concern.  337 

shivering,  it  will  not  comfort  him  to  know  that  he  is  as 
picturesque  as  his  fire,  as  he  bends  over  it  and  pokes  it. 
Furnaces  are  comfortable — there's  no  denying  it.  Car- 
pets are  comfortable  too,  and  carpets  and  furnaces  are 
going  to  live. 

Even  our  plumbing  is  complained  of,  and  men  are 
taught  to  look  back  to  a  clumsy  wash-stand  and  a  big 
basin,  and  a  heavy  pitcher,  as  things  that  were  pretty 
and  sensible,  and  in  every  way  more  desirable  than  the 
modern  hot  and  cold  water  that  comes  and  goes  with  the 
turning  of  a  cock  or  the  lifting  of  a  gate.  Now  it  always 
seemed  to  us  that  a  big  water-pitcher  was  an  awkward 
thing  for  a  strong  man  to  handle,  to  say  nothing  about  a 
weak  woman.  Bathing  the  hands  and  face  at  an  old- 
fashioned  wash-stand — pouring  water  out  of  pitchers 
into  basins,  and  out  of  basins  into  slop-jars— seems  to  us 
to  be  a  very  clumsy  business,  compared  with  that  mode 
of  introducing  and  dismissing  water  which  has  come  in 
with  "  modern  improvements."  So  we  believe  in  plumb- 
ing, and  not  only  don't  believe  it  will  ever  be  done  away 
with,  but  are  sure  that  it  will  go  on  unto  perfection. 

The  mistake  of  this  era  in  the  history  of  "  household 
art  and  home  decoration,"  lies,  it  seems  to  us,  in  the  at- 
tempt to  do  too  much  with  furniture.  Ruskin,  in  one  of 
his  books,  distinguishes  between  building  and  architect- 
ure. There  are  certain  structures  in  which  architecture 
should  never  be  attempted.  A  grain-elevator,  a  store- 
house, a  barn — these  arc  buildings,  and  architecture  is 
out  of  place  in  them.  There  is  no  more  reason  why  they 
should  be  beautiful  than  there  is  why  a  meal-sack  should 
be  beautiful,  or  a  wheelbarrow,  or  a  coal-cart.  So  it  seems 
to  us  that  there  may  be,  and  that  there  are,  certain  items 
of  furniture  which  wc  may  legitimately  excuse  from  the 
duty  of  picturesqucness.  If  our  carpets  are  less  beauti- 
ful than  rugs  upon  bare  floors,  if  furnaces  are  less  inter- 


338  Every-Day   Topics. 

esting  than  open  fires,  if  the  old-fashioned  wash-bowl 
and  pitcher  are  more  picturesque  than  the  plumber's 
substitute,  what  of  it  ?  In  which  direction  shall  we  make 
our  sacrifices  ?  Toward  comfort  and  convenience,  or 
toward  the  picturesqueness  of  ruder  times  and  smaller 
means  ?  We  advocate  comfort  and  convenience,  and 
leave  others  to  do  as  they  choose.  The  modern  advo- 
cacy of  beauty,  in  connection  with  all  articles  of  furni- 
ture and  household  convenience,  reminds  one  of  the 
child  who  insists  on  making  play  of  everything — who 
cannot  take  a  mouthful  of  food,  or  do  an  act  of  ser- 
vice, without  making  it  in  some  way  a  source  of  amuse- 
ment. 

To  come  to  the  practical  point,  a  home  may  be  inter- 
esting without  being  more  than  moderately  beautiful, 
and  may  be  more  than  moderately  beautiful  without 
being  interesting  at  all.  If  we  rely  entirely  upon  furni- 
ture for  the  interest  of  a  house — if  we  make  furniture 
picturesque  at  the  price  of  comfort  and  convenience,  our 
homes  may  be  made  interesting  in  a  moderate  way,  pro- 
vided we  follow  out  our  individual  ideas,  and  do  not  fall 
back  upon  the  conventionalisms  of  the  manufacturers. 
But  the  most  interesting  things  in  a  house  should  never 
be  its  furniture.  Given  convenient  furniture,  that  shall 
be  picturesque  when  convenient,  the  question  whether  a 
home  shall  be  greatly  interesting  relates  mainly  to  other 
things — to  books,  pictures,  objects  of  art,  bric-a-brac, 
and  treasures  of  various  sorts,  in  fact  or  in  association. 
We  can  point  to  homes  whose  furniture  attracts  no  at- 
tention whatever,  but  which  are  absorbingly  interesting 
through  the  artistic  products  of  its  members.  The  more 
the  culture  and  taste  of  cultured  and  tasteful  people  are 
expressed  in  their  homes,  through  various  modes  and 
forms  of  art,  the  more  interesting  those  homes  will  be  ; 
and  the  more  a  guest  is  compelled  to  forget  furniture. 


Matters  of  Domestic  Concern.  339 

except  as  it  answers  to  the  higher  harmonies  of  the 
house,  the  better.  The  best  things  of  an  interesting 
home  are  never  bought  of  a  furniture  dealer,  though  the 
most  beautiful  may  be. 

Good  Talking. 

There  is  an  impression  among  people  who  talk  and 
write  that  the  art  of  conversation  has  died,  or  is  dying 
out ;  that  there  are  not  as  many  remarkable  talkers  in 
the  world  as  there  were,  and  that  the  present  generation 
will  leave  no  such  records  of  brilliant  conversation  as 
some  of  its  predecessors  have  done.  We  suspect  that 
the  impression  is  a  sound  one,  and  that  for  some  reason, 
not  apparent  on  the  surface,  less  attention  has  been  be- 
stowed upon  the  art  of  talking  than  formerly.  It  maybe 
that  the  remarkable  development  of  the  press  which  has 
given  opportunity  for  expression  to  everybody,  with  a  great 
audience  to  tempt  the  writer,  has  drawn  attention  from 
an  art  demanding  fine  skill,  with  only  the  reward  of  an 
audience  always  limited  in  numbers,  and  an  influence  quite 
incommensurate  with  the  amount  of  vitality  expended. 

Still,  there  are  doubtless  many  who  would  like  to  be 
good  talkers.  Social  importance  and  consideration  arc 
perhaps  more  easily  won  by  the  power  of  good  talking 
than  by  any  other  means,  wealth  and  the  ability  to  keep 
a  hospitable  house  not  excepted.  A  really  good  talker 
is  always  at  a  social  premium,  so  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  requisites  of  good  talking  will  be  of  interest  to  a 
great  many  bright  people.  For  it  must  be  confessed  that 
men's  ideas  of  the  art  are  very  crude  and  confused. 
When  we  talk  of  "  the  art  of  conversation,"  people  really 
do  not  know  what  we  mean.  They  do  not  know  what 
the  art  is,  or  how  it  may  be  cultivated  ;  or,  indeed,  that 
it  is  anything  more  than  a  natural  knack. 


340  Every-Day   Topics. 

The  first  requisite  of  a  good  talker  is  genuine  socia\ 
sympathy.  A  man  may  not  say,  out  of  some  selfish  mo- 
tive, or  some  motive  of  personal  policy,  "  Go  to !  I  will 
become  a  good  talker."  He  must  enjoy  society,  and 
have  a  genuine  desire  to  serve  and  please.  We  have  all 
seen  the  talker  who  talks  for  his  own  purposes,  or  talks 
to  please  himself.  He  is  the  well-known  character — the 
talking  bore.  The  talker  who  gets  himself  up  for  show, 
who  plans  his  conversations  for  an  evening,  and  crams 
for  them,  becomes  intolerable.  He  lectures  :  he  does 
not  converse  ;  for  there  is  no  power  of  a  talker  so  de- 
lightful as  that  of  exciting  others  to  talk,  and  listening 
to  what  his  own  inspiring  and  suggestive  utterances  have 
called  forth.  Genuine  social  sympathy  and  a  hearty  de- 
sire to  please  others  are  necessary  to  produce  such  a 
talker  as  this,  and  no  other  is  tolerable.  Social  sympa- 
thy is  a  natural  gift,  and  there  is  a  combination  of  other 
gifts  which  constitute  what  may  be  called  esprit,  that 
are  very  essential  to  a  good  talker.  This  combination 
includes  individuality,  tact  and  wit — the  talents,  apti- 
tudes, and  peculiar  characteristic  charm  which  enable  a 
man  to  use  the  materials  of  conversation  in  an  engaging 
way,  entirely  his  own  ;  for  every  good  talker  has  his 
own  way  of  saying  good  things,  as  well  as  of  managing 
conversation  based  on  his  esprit. 

Yet  it  is  true  that  there  are  no  good  talkers  who  de- 
pend upon  their  natural  gifts  and  such  material  as  they 
get  in  the  usual  interchanges  of  society.  For  the  mate- 
rials of  conversation  we  must  draw  upon  knowledge.  No 
man  can  be  a  thoroughly  good  talker  who  docs  not  know 
a  great  deal.  Social  sympathy  and  "  the  gift  of  gab" 
go  but  a  short  way  toward  producing  good  conversation, 
though  we  hear  a  great  deal  of  this  kind  of  talk  among 
the  young.  Sound  and  exact  knowledge  is  the  very  basis 
of  good  conversation.     To  know  a  great  many  things 


Matters  of  Domestic  Concern.  341 

well  is  to  have  in  hand  the  best  and  most  reliable  mate- 
rials of  good  conversation.  There  is  nothing  like  abun- 
dance and  exactness  of  knowledge  with  which  to  furnish 
a  talker.  Next  to  this,  perhaps,  is  familiarity  with  polite 
literature.  The  faculty  of  quoting  from  the  best  authors 
is  a  very  desirable  one.  Facts  are  valuable,  and  thoughts 
perhaps  are  quite  as  valuable,  especially  as  they  are 
more  stimulating  to  the  conversation  of  a  group.  The 
talker  who  deals  alone  in  facts  is  quite  likely  to  have  the 
talk  all  to  himself,  while  the  man  who  is  familiar  with 
thoughts  and  ideas,  as  he  has  found  them  embodied  in 
literature,  becomes  a  stimulator  of  thought  and  conver- 
sation in  those  around  him.  Familiarity  with  knowl- 
edge and  with  the  products  of  literary  art  cannot  be  too 
much  insisted  on  as  the  furniture  of  good  conversation. 

Beyond  this,  the  good  talker  must  be  familiar  with  the 
current  thought  and  events  of  his  time.  There  should 
be  no  movement  in  politics,  religion  and  society  that 
the  good  talker  is  not  familiar  with.  Indeed,  the  man 
who  undertakes  to  talk  at  all  must  know  what  is  upper- 
most in  men's  minds,  and  be  able  to  add  to  the  general 
fund  of  thought  and  knowledge,  and  respond  to  the 
popular  inquiry  and  the  popular  disposition  for  discus- 
sion. The  man  who  undertakes  to  be  a  good  talker 
should  never  be  caught  napping,  concerning  any  current 
topic  of  immediate  public  interest. 

How  to  carry  and  convey  superiority  of  knowledge  and 
culture  without  appearing  to  be  pedantic,  how  to  talk 
out  of  abundant  stores  of  information  and  familiarity 
with  opinion  without  seeming  to  preach,  as  Coleridge 
was  accused  of  doing,  belongs,  with  the  ability  to  talk 
well,  to  "  the  art  of  conversation."  It  has  seemed  to  us 
that  if  young  people  could  only  see  how  shallow  and 
silly  very  much  of  their  talk  is,  and  must  necessarily  be, 
so  long  as  they  lack  the  materials  of  conversation,  they 


342  Every -Day    Topics. 

would  take  more  pains  with  their  study,  would  devote 
themselves  more  to  the  best  books,  and  that,  at  least, 
they  would  acquire  and  maintain  more  familiarity  with 
important  current  events.  To  know  something  is  the 
best  cure  for  neighborhood  gossip,  for  talk  about  dress, 
and  for  ten  thousand  frivolities  and  sillinesses  of  society. 
Besides,  a  good  talker  needs  an  audience  to  understand 
and  respond  to  him,  and  where  is  he  to  find  one  if  there 
is  not  abundant  culture  around  him  ? 

The  Amusements  of  the  Rich. 

The  average  rich  man  and  woman,  in  adult  life,  have, 
it  must  be  confessed,  rather  a  stupid  time  of  it.  If  they 
do  not  have  a  country-house,  to  which  they  have  bound 
themselves  for  the  summer ;  if,  when  they  break  up  in 
the  spring,  they  can  wander  where  they  please,  they 
manage  to  get  along  pretty  well.  The  man  attends  his 
club  in  winter  ;  the  woman  goes  her  society-round,  and  in 
the  summer  they  are  free.  The  theatre  does  not  have 
many  attractions  for  the  old  resident.  His  society  means 
dinners,  receptions,  dress  ;  and  it  comes  at  last  to  be  a 
bore,  from  which  he  retires  in  disgust  to  that  which  is 
still  worse — himself.  Here  and  there  among  them  there 
is  a  hobby-rider,  who  manages  to  interest  himself  in  some 
trifle,  and  so  gets  rid  of  his  time.  Often  without  culture, 
nearly  always  without  a  stimulus  to  industry,  his  lazy 
hours  hang  upon  his  hands,  and  he  is  glad  of  the  change 
which  summer  brings  him.  We  really  do  not  see  what 
can  be  done  for  him.  He  is  usually  too  old  to  learn  any- 
thing— especially  that  he  must  go  out  of  himself  into  some 
sort  of  service  to  others,  in  order  to  sharpen  his  interest 
in  life,  and  win  the  content  that  he  lacks. 

The  amusements  of  the  adult  rich  can  hardly  be  called 
amusements  at  all,  for  any  pursuit  that  is  entered  upon 


Matters  of  Domestic  Concern.  343 

for  the  simple  purpose  of  killing  time  does  not  deserve 
that  name.  Amusement,  or  play,  should  be  a  sponta- 
neous, recreative  exercise  of  the  faculties  and  emotions, 
during  the  intervals  of  work.  Amusement,  in  order  to 
be  genuine,  must  be  entered  upon  with  hearty  zest ;  and 
very  few,  except  the  young,  and  the  adults  who  have 
some  active  and  regular  pursuit,  are  capable  of  this.  A 
life  of  absolute  leisure  is,  as  a  rule,  a  life  without  amuse- 
ment. The  young  engaged  in  study,  and  the  maturer 
men  and  women  who  are  in  active  life,  are  the  only 
ones  who  enjoy  the  conditions  of  amusement. 

True  amusement  is  of  two  kinds,  viz.:  active  and  pas- 
sive. The  active  and  weary  man  and  woman — those 
who  exhaust  every  day  their  vital  energies  in  work — take 
naturally  to  passive  amusement.  A  lady  of  our  acquaint- 
ance, engaged  daily  in  severe  intellectual  tasks,  says 
that  nothing  rests  her  like  seeing  other  people  work. 
For  this  she  goes  to  the  theatre,  and  the  play  upon  her 
emotions  there  rests,  and  recreates  her.  Indeed,  it  is 
the  emotional  side  of  the  nature,  and  not  the  active, 
which  furnishes  play  to  those  who  are  weary  with  the  use 
of  their  faculties.  This  fact  covers  the  secret  of  the 
popular  success  of  what  is  called  emotional  preaching. 
People  who  have  been  engaged  all  the  week  in  exhaust- 
ing labor  of  any  kind  do  not  take  kindly  to  a  high  intel- 
lectual feast  on  Sunday.  They  want  to  be  moved  and 
played  upon.  This  rests  and  interests  them,  while  the 
profound  discussion  of  great  problems  in  life  and  religion 
wearies  and  bores  them.  They  arc  not  up  to  it.  They 
are  weary  and  jaded  in  that  part  of  their  nature  which 
such  a  discussion  engages.  The  emotions  which  have 
been  blunted  and  suppressed  by  tlicir  pursuits  arc  hun- 
gry. So  every  form  of  amusement  that  truly  meets 
their  wants  must  be  emotive,  and  must  leave  them  free 
to  rest  in  those  faculties  which  are  wearv. 


344  Evcry-Day    Topics. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  young,  who  are  brimming 
with  animal  Hfe,  and  who  fail  to  exhaust  it  in  study,  call 
for  active  amusements,  and  they  must  have  them.  And 
here  the  parent  is  in  danger  of  making  a  great  mistake. 
Unless  a  boy  is  a  milk-sop,  he  must  do  something  or 
die.  If  he  cannot  do  something  in  his  home,  or  in  the 
homes  of  his  companions,  he  will  do  something  else- 
where. It  is  only  within  a  few  years  that  parents  have 
begun  to  be  sensible  upon  this  matter.  The  billiard- 
table,  which  a  few  years  ago  was  only  associated  with 
dissipation,  now  has  an  honored  place  and  the  largest 
room  in  every  rich  man's  house.  The  card-table,  that 
once  was  a  synonym  of  wickedness,  is  a  part  of  the  rich 
man's  furniture,  which  his  children  may  use  at  will,  in 
the  pursuit  of  a  harmless  game.  A  good  many  manufac- 
tured sins  have  been  dethroned  from  their  fictitious  life 
and  eminence,  and  put  to  beneficent  family  service  on 
behalf  of  the  young.  Athletic  sports,  such  as  skating, 
boating,  shooting,  ball-playing,  running  and  leaping, 
have  sprung  into  great  prominence  within  the  past  few 
years — amusements  of  just  the  character  for  working  off 
the  excessive  vitality  of  young  men,  and  developing  their 
physical  power.  This  is  all  well — a  reform  in  the  right 
direction.  Much  of  this  is  done  before  the  public  eye, 
and  in  the  presence  of  young  women,  which  helps  to  re- 
strain all  tendencies  to  excesses  and  to  dissipation. 

The  activities  of  young  women  take  another  direction, 
and  nothing  seems  to  us  more  hopeful  than  the  pursuits 
in  which  they  engage.  The  rich  young  woman  in  these 
days,  who  does  not  marry,  busies  herself  in  tasteful  and 
intellectual  pursuits.  The  reading-club,  the  Shakspere- 
club,  the  drawing-class,  and  kindred  associations,  em- 
ploy her  spare  time  ;  and  now  there  is  hardly  a  more 
busy  person  living  than  the  rich  young  woman  who  is 
through  with  her  boarding-school.     The  poor,  who  sup- 


Matters  of  Doinestic   Concern.  345 

pose  that  the  rich  young  woman  leads  an  idle  life,  are 
very  much  mistaken.  The  habits  of  voluntary  industry 
now  adopted  and  practised  by  the  young  women  of 
America,  in  good  circumstances,  are  most  gratefully  sur- 
prising. One  of  them  who  is  not  so  busy  during  the 
winter  that  she  really  needs  a  recuperating  summer,  is 
an  exception.  Our  old  ideas  of  the  lazy,  fashionable  girl 
must  be  set  aside.  They  are  all  at  work  at  something. 
It  may  not  bring  them  money,  but  it  brings  what  is  much 
better  to  them — the  content  that  comes  of  an  earnest 
and  fruitful  pursuit.  It  may  take  the  form  of  amuse- 
ment, but  it  results  in  a  training  for  self-helpfulness  and 
industry. 

So,  while  not  much  can  be  done  for  the  adult  in  this 
matter  of  amusement,  much  is  done  for  the  young,  and 
much  that  will  help  to  give  us  a  generation  of  older  men 
and  women,  who  will  not  be  content  with  the  poor  bus- 
iness of  killing  time.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that 
while  the  young  women  "assist"  at  the  athletic  games 
of  the  young  men,  the  young  men  are  indispensable  to 
the  intellectual  associations  of  the  young  women.  They 
meet  together,  and  stimulate  and  help  each  other  ; 
and  it  does  not  seem  possible  that  either  party  should 
ever  subside  into  those  time-killers  who  haunt  the  clubs 
established  for  men,  or  those  jaded  women  who  drag 
themselves  around  to  dinners  and  lunches  and  thronged 
assemblies. 

15* 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

Scientific  Foolishness. 

WE  have  been  exceedingly  amused  by  an  article 
from  the  pen  of  Professor  Grant  Allen,  published 
in  a  recent  number  of  the  Fortnightly  Review,  and  en- 
titled "  A  Problem  in  Human  Evolution."  In  conse- 
quence of  the  opposition  which  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  has 
met  with,  concerning  the  causes  which,  in  the  course  of 
the  development  of  man  from  his  hirsute  anthropoid  an- 
cestors, have  despoiled  him  of  his  hairy  covering,  Pro- 
fessor Allen  says  :  "  It  seems  highly  desirable,  therefore) 
to  prop  up  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  by  any  external  supports 
which  observation  or  analogy  may  suggest,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, to  show  some  original  groundwork  in  the  shape  of 
a  natural  tendency  to  hairlessness,  upon  which  sexual 
selection  might  afterward  exert  itself,  so  as  to  increase 
and  accelerate  the  depilatory  process  when  once  set  up." 
So  the  writer  goes  to  work  in  the  highly  "desirable" 
enterprise  of  propping  up  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  that  men 
were  not  made,  but  were  developed  from  a  lower  form 
of  life,  as  it  was  embodied  in  a  hairy  animal.  The  prob- 
lem to  be  solved  is  :  "  How  did  men  get  rid  of  their 
hair  ?  "  Well,  how  do  you  suppose  it  was  done  ?  It  was 
done  mainly  by  lying  down  on  it.  The  most  hairless 
portion  of  the  body  is  the  back,  and  the  professor  thinks 
that,  as  man  assumed  the  erect  position  in  walking,  he 
became  an  animal  lying  less  and  less  on  its  belly,  and 


Miscellaneous.  347 

more  and  more  upon  its  back,  so  that  the  growth  of  the 
hair  was  checked,  or  the  hair  itself  was  worn  away.  The 
manner  of  wrapping  and  protecting  the  human  infant  is 
also  supposed  to  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  ef- 
fect. After  a  few  had  got  rid  of  their  hair,  hairlessness  be- 
came popular,  and  what  artificial  denudation  had  begun, 
sexual  selection  completed.  Bare  skins  were  too  strong 
for  bear-skins,  and  the  hair-wearers  were  left  out  in  the 
cold.  Now,  we  submit  that  there  never  was  a  specula- 
tion more  irredeemably  nonsensical  than  this.  And  it  is 
gravely  put  forth  in  a  journal  of  the  best  class  as  worthy 
of  respectful  reading  and  consideration  !  Those  who  be- 
lieve that  man  was  created  by  an  all-wise  power  who  gave 
to  the  skin  the  beauty  and  delicacy  which  distinguish  it 
from  the  hairy  integuments  of  the  brute  creation,  are 
accused  very  freely  by  the  scientific  world  of  credulity, 
but  there  are  very  few  among  them  who  are  sufficiently 
addled  to  accept  Professor  Allen's  speculations  upon 
this  topic  as  worth  the  paper  they  were  written  on.  A 
child  on  reading  them  would  naturally  ask  why,  if  lying 
upon  the  back  should  produce  the  results  attributed  to 
it,  would  not  lying  on  the  back  of  the  head  affect  the 
covering  of  that  portion  of  the  human  structure  in  the 
same  way.  Now,  it  so  happens  that  where  the  weight 
of  the  head  rests  the  most  heavily,  the  hair  sticks  the 
tightest.  When  a  man  grows  bald,  he  grows  bald  on  the 
top  of  his  head,  where  he  gets  no  pressure  whatever. 
Now,  not  one  of  our  hairy  ancestors  ever  lay  down  on 
his  back  without  his  head,  and  tlie  head  with  all  its 
weight,  was  pressed  upon  the  hair.  Docs  it  not  occur 
to  Professor  Allen  as  strange  that  pressure,  as  a  depila- 
tory, should  be  so  partial  in  its  operation  ?  Nay,  does 
it  not  seem  strange  to  him  that  tlie  same  agent  which 
denudes  the  body  of  its  hair  acts  as  a  genuine  tightener 
of  that  covering  upon  the  head  ? 


348  Every -Day   Topics. 

Speculation  is  cheap,  so  let  us  indulge  in  a  little.  As- 
suming as  sound  the  theory  that  we  are  descended  from 
a  hairy  anthropoid  ape,  we  must  admit  that  we  started 
from  rather  a  savage  condition.  Why  is  it  not  possible 
that  the  hair  was  pulled  out  in  fighting  ?  What  with 
active  hair-pulling,  and  the  cicatrices  of  wounds  received 
in  combat,  it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  hairy  man 
or  woman  pretty  well  cleaned  off.  So,  as  a  hairless 
skin  began  to  be  appreciated  as  a  badge  of  bravery,  it 
furnished  "  a  ground-work  upon  which  sexual  selection 
might  afterward  exert  itself."  Is  there  anything  unrea- 
sonable in  this  ?  Isn't  it  about  as  scientific  as  Professor 
Allen's  hypothesis  ?  We  take  out  no  patent  on  it,  and 
The  Fortnightly  is  welcome  to  it. 

But  we  have  a  better  speculation  than  that  one,  which 
Professor  Allen  went  all  around  without  seeing,  and  the 
only  rational  one  in  the  case.  If  we  were  writing  for  the 
object  which  inspires  Professor  Allen's  efforts,  viz.,  that 
of  "  propping  up  "  Mr.  Darwin's  theory,  we  should  speak 
of  the  probable  and  entirely  natural  effect  of  clothing 
upon  the  human  frame.  Hairy  brutes  suffer  with  cold  as 
men  do  who  have  no  hair.  When  man  began  to  be  man, 
with  the  hair  on,  he  began  to  be  bright  enough  to  kill 
animals  and  take  their  skins  off.  Then  he  became  bright 
enough  to  supplement  his  own  hair  with  the  hair  he  had 
captured.  At  last  he  began  to  wear  clothes  as  a  regu- 
lar habit.  As  soon  as  he  did  this  he  rendered  the  hair 
upon  his  own  person  unnecessary,  and  nature  ceased  to 
produce  it,  as  nature  ceased  to  furnish  eyes  to  the  fishes 
that  take  up  their  homes  in  the  Mammoth  Cave.  Na- 
ture is  full  of  analogies  which  teach  us  that  when  a 
function  is  superseded  it  ceases.  Now,  how  is  that  for 
a  theory  ?  Is  it  not  a  good  deal  more  rational  than 
Professor  Allen's  ?  We  state  it  to  show  how  easy  it  is  to 
build  a  theory  which  shall,  in  all  respects,  be  as  rational 


Miscellaneous.  349 

as  those  gravely  put  forth  by  men  who  chiin  to  be  scien- 
tific. And  we  do  claim  that  this  theory  is  a  better  one 
than  Professor  Allen's,  in  all  respects,  for  his  own  pur- 
poses. 

Still,  we  do  not  believe  in  it.  We  have  never  yet  seen 
anything  that  looks  like  proof  that  we  were  not  created 
by  a  direct  act  of  the  Almighty.  We  believe  that  man 
was  made  originally  with  a  hairless  skin  for  beauty's 
sake,  and  because  he  was  endowed  with  the  ability  to 
manufacture  his  own  clothing,  and  with  the  power  to 
tint  and  fashion  it  in  correspondence  with  his  ideas  of 
fitness  and  attractiveness.  There  is  no  more  reason  for 
doubting  that  man  began  to  exist  by  a  direct  act  of 
creation,  endowed  with  all  his  present  characteristics  of 
form  and  natural  covering,  than  that  life  began  to  exist  on 
the  earth  in  any  form.  Somewhere,  behind  all  the  links 
of  causation,  exists  the  causeless  cause,  incomprehensi- 
ble to  us,  but  possessing  intelligence  and  consciousness 
out  of  which  our  own  consciousness  and  intelligence  are 
born,  and  without  which  they  never  could  have  existed. 

The  Tax  for  Barharism. 

The  world  groans  with  poverty.  Wherever,  in  the 
cities  of  the  Old  World  or  the  New,  a  well-dressed, 
comfortable  man  moves  through  a  street,  the  hand  that 
asks  for  alms  is  extended  to  him.  He  can  hardly  walk  a 
block  without  being  painfully  reminded  that  there  is  a 
great  world  around  him  that  lives  in  mean  conditions, 
from  hand  to  mouth.  The  tax  upon  a  benevolent  man's 
sensibilities  is  constant  and  most  depressing.  The  con- 
sciousness that,  while  he  is  enjoying  tlie  reward  of  hon- 
est labor,  there  arc  millions  whose  minds  are  charged 
with  anxiety  concerning  the  barest  necessaries  of  life,  is 
full  of  bitterness.      It  matters  not  that  the  most  of  thii 


350  Every- Day   Topics. 

poverty  is  the  result  of  vice  and  improvidence,  for  that 
only  makes  the  matter  more  hopeless.  The  immediate 
causes  of  this  poverty  are  apparent  enough,  and  great 
efforts  are  made  in  various  directions  for  destroying 
them  ;  but  the  reformers  work  against  what  seem  to  be 
almost  hopeless  disadvantages. 

There  is  one  cause  of  the  world's  poverty,  however, 
which  the  ordinary  mind  very  rarely  considers.  We  rec- 
ognize the  personal  vices  of  men,  but  we  pay  little  re- 
gard to  the  vices  of  governments.  To-day  the  world  is 
spending  on  war — on  national  contests  for  power,  and  on 
the  preparations  for  possible  contests  in  the  future — 
enough  to  feed  the  poor  of  the  world.  England,  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  are  full  of  soldiers.  Russia  and 
Turkey  and  the  minor  powers  immediately  interested 
are,  at  the  present  writing,  absorbed  in  a  great  and  aw- 
ful war.  The  thoughts,  policies,  energies,  resources  of 
all  Europe  seem  to  be  absorbed  in  this  barbarous  busi- 
ness. England  is  jealous  of  Russian  progress  in  the 
East.  France  is  smarting  under  the  sting  of  lost  pres- 
tige, and  watching  her  opportunity  for  revenge.  Ger- 
many, conscious  that  her  old  enemy  is  not  yet  humbled, 
holds  her  army  organized,  and  ready  for  another  trial. 
Italy  is  drawing  the  life-blood  of  her  people  to  sustain  a 
standing  force  that  shall  make  her  power  respected  by 
the  subtle  agencies  which  are  contriving  its  destruction. 
Spain,  herself  the  field  for  easy  revolution,  is  pouring 
out  her  treasure  and  her  blood  in  trying  to  preserve  her 
precious  island  of  Cuba.  The  American  people  are  still 
staggering  under  the  terrible  burdens  which  their  recent 
civil  war  laid  upon  their  shoulders.  The  waste  of  life, 
the  waste  of  labor,  the  waste  of  the  materials  of  life,  the 
waste  of  the  hoarded  results  of  labor,  produced  by  these 
gigantic  quarrels  and  these  stupendous  preparations  for 
quarrels,  cannot  be  calculated. 


Miscellaneous.  3  5 1 

It  is  easy  to  say  this  and  see  this  ;  yet,  right  here  in 
America,  tiiere  are  many  men  who  look  upon  a  European 
war  as  a  godsend  to  our  industry  and  our  commerce  ! 
It  is  a  grave  mistake.  The  world  is  now  so  closely 
woven  together  in  commercial  interest  and  sympathy, 
that  no  war  can  occur  without  carrying  its  depressing  in- 
fluence to  every  nation,  state,  county,  town,  and  fire- 
side on  the  civilized  globe.  The  country  that,  in  the 
necessity  of  war,  buys  our  goods  to-day,  will  to-morrow, 
in  consequence  of  its  war,  be  either  weakened  or  bank- 
rupt, and  our  customer  will  bo  gone.  The  time  of  de- 
pression and  adversity  through  which  this  nation  has 
been  passing  for  the  past  five  years,  and  from  which  it 
has  recently  emerged,  has  produced  its  result  in  Europe. 
Every  country  with  which  we  trade  has  severely  felt  our 
reverses,  and  the  hard  times  we  have  talked  of  here  have 
been  the  common  topic  in  London,  Liverpool,  Man- 
chester, Paris,  Lyons,  and  the  other  commercial  and 
manufacturing  centres.  Those  producing  and  trading 
peoples  of  Europe  thought  they  made  something  out  of 
our  war,  but  what  they  made  is  gone.  If  we  make  any- 
thing out  of  a  European  war,  wc  shall  lose  it  all  in  five 
years.  Any  war  that  cripples  them  will  cripple  us.  In 
short,  war  is  never  profital)le  to  anybody.  It  is  not  a 
legitim.Tte  business.  It  is  a  barbarous  business.  It  is  a 
constant  drag  upon  the  prosperity,  not  only  of  the  na- 
tions immediately  involved  in  it,  but  of  the  world  ;  and 
the  whole  world  has  a  vital  interest  in  bringing  it  to  an 
end.  There  is  not  a  poor  man  in  America  who  will  not 
be  made  poorer  by  a  European  war.  Its  suspension  of 
productive  industry,  its  destruction  of  vital  resources, 
its  waste  of  valuable  material,  are  all  losses  from  the 
world's  wealth,  and  all  the  world  will  feel  them.  War, 
too.  is  a  natural  breeder  of  vice.  What  a  legacy  nfvicr, 
of  idleness,  ot   immorality,  has  war  left  to  us'.     Where 


352  Every -Day   Topics. 

did  all  our  wretched  army  of  tramps  come  from  ? 
Whence  has  come  all  this  overwhelming  accession  to  the 
ranks  of  pauperism  ?  These  frequent  murders  and  sui- 
cides and  robberies,  in  what  did  they  directly  or  indi- 
rectly originate  ?  These  are  all  the  natural  children  of 
war.  We  cannot  outlive  them  in  a  generation.  We 
never  can  outlive  them,  entirely.  Why,  if  we  could  do 
away  with  all  war,  and  with  all  standing  armies  for  half 
a  century,  the  world  would  become  so  comfortable  and 
respectable  that  it  would  not  know  itself. 

Well,  war,  let  it  be  remembered,  is  not  the  outgrowth 
of  Christianity.  It  is  its  constant  disgrace.  It  is  a  relic 
of  that  barbarism  from  which,  in  our  vanity  and  self- 
complacency,  we  fancy  that  we  have  retired.  It  is  the 
attempt  to  settle  political  and  even  religious  questions 
by  might.  It  rises  in  no  essential  dignity  above  the 
struggle  which  two  dogs  indulge  in  for  a  bone.  It  is  the 
way  in  which  savage  tribes  settle  a  dispute.  It  is  the 
duel,  now  pretty  universally  under  condemnation,  un- 
dertaken by  states.  It  is  brutal,  not  human.  It  is  the 
work  of  barbarous  men  or  savage  animals,  and  not  of 
Christian  peoples. 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  the  world  to  laugh  at  peace 
men  and  peace  congresses,  but  they,  after  all,  are  right. 
It  is,  of  course,  the  duty  of  a  nation  to  defend  itself; 
this  we  suppose  all  men  will  admit.  The  law  of  self- 
preservation  is  a  law  universally  recognized  ;  but  in  these 
days  the  cases  are  very  few  in  which  arbitration,  honestly 
entered  upon  with  a  desire  for  the  preservation  of  peace, 
cannot  settle  any  question  that  may  arise  between  dif- 
ferent nations.  Even  if  Christian  considerations  do  not 
avail  for  the  purpose,  the  absolute  bankruptcy  and  ruin 
of  the  great  governments  of  the  world,  through  the  taxes 
of  barbaric  war,  must  ultimately  drive  them  to  the  set- 
tlement of  international  questions  by  international  ar- 


Miscellaneous.  353 

bitration.  The  nations  of  the  world  arc  now  too  near 
together,  and  too  strongly  and  immediately  sympathetic, 
to  permit  the  warlike  and  semi-barbaric  among  them  to 
indulge  in  the  arbitrament  of  war.  We  cannot  afford 
war  in  this  country,  and  we  cannot  afford  to  permit 
others  to  indulge  in  it.  It  is  out  of  place  in  our  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  Drama. 

In  an  article  published  some  years  ago,  we  recognized 
the  drama  as  an  institution  that  had  come  to  stay  as  an 
important  factor  in  the  social  and  intellectual  life  of  the 
people — as  a  source  of  much  pleasure,  and  a  possible 
source  of  much  culture.  Since  that  day,  the  drama  has 
had  its  place  in  this  magazine.  We  have  criticised  it 
freely,  we  have  commended  heartily  what  has  seemed  to 
be  praiseworthy,  and  our  notices  of  famous  actors  and 
actresses  have  presented  the  public  with  much  interest- 
ing, instructive,  and  stimulating  personal  history.  It 
seems  to  us  that  theatres  are  improving,  and  that  there 
is  much  less  that  is  objectionable  in  their  conduct  and 
influence  than  formerly.  We  have  been  witnesses  to  the 
fact,  right  here  in  New  York,  that  the  cleanest  and  best 
plays  have  been  the  most  successful.  Plays  without  any 
equivocal  situations  in  them — plays  that  leave  no  stain, 
and  excite  no  unwholesome  imaginations — have  run  for 
months,  and  made  their  managers  rich. 

Now,  these  facts  are  weighty  in  the  work  of  reforma- 
tion. Whenever  the  time  comes  in  the  history  of  the 
stage  that  dirt  does  not  pay,  it  will  cease  to  be  presented. 
There  arc,  undoubtedly,  theatres  in  New  York  which 
cater  to  the  lower  tastes  of  the  crowd,  but  there  are  cer- 
tainly theatres  here  that  studiously  avoid  offending  the 
ears  of  polite  and  Christian  people  with  double  entente. 


354  Every -Day   Topics. 

and  profanity,  and  irreverence.  There  is  undoubtedly 
an  increasing  attendance  upon  the  theatre  among  refined 
and  religious  people,  and  we  rejoice  in  the  fact,  for  it  is 
full  of  promise  for  the  theatre  itself,  and  for  the  bodily 
and  mental  health  of  those  who  are  attracted  to  it.  The 
undiscriminating  abuse  of  theatres — the  attempt  to  drive 
good  people  away  from  them  —is  a  damage  to  the  cause 
of  morality  in  any  community.  The  undiscriminating 
condemnation  of  actors  is  a  gross  and  inexcusable  injus- 
tice, and  when  this  condemnation  comes  from  a  minis- 
ter of  the  gospel  of  charity,  what  can  it  do  but  drive  the 
whole  fraternity  away  from  all  religious  influence  and  all 
sense  of  religious  obligations  ?  Yet  there  are  Christian 
ministers  who  do  this  over  the  brims  of  their  wine-cups, 
foolishly  fancying  that  the  cherished  habit  of  their  lives 
is  absolutely  righteous,  when  it  is  more  baleful  to  the 
world  in  the  influences  and  results  of  a  single  day,  than 
all  the  theatres  and  actors  of  the  world  are  in  a  decade. 
It  is  not  in  this  way  that  the  world  is  to  be  bettered. 
If  the  drama  is  among  us,  and  is  come  to  stay — and 
none  will  dispute  this — then  it  is  our  business  to  make 
the  best  of  it,  and  to  do  all  in  our  power  to  make  it  pure. 
We  are  always,  in  our  patronage  of  it,  to  offer  a  pre- 
mium for  literary  and  personal  purity.  A  play  that  is 
bad  should  always  be  severely  let  alone.  An  actor  or 
an  actress  whose  character  is  notoriously  bad  should  be 
shunned.  We  would  no  sooner  sit  before  the  foot-lights, 
giving  countenance  and  support  to  a  courtesan,  than  we 
would  consent  to  meet  her  in  society.  She  is  a  dishonor 
to  her  craft,  and  a  disgrace  to  the  stage.  Her  presence 
is  pollution.  To  pet  and  patronize  such  a  creature  as 
this  is  to  disgrace  ourselves,  no  matter  how  great  her 
genius  may  be.  It  is  by  discriminating  between  virtu- 
ous and  vicious  plays,  and  virtuous  and  vicious  players, 
that  the  stage  is  to  be  kept  pure  and  ennobling  in  its  in- 


Miscellaneous.  355 

fluence,  and  not  by  condemning  everything  and  every- 
body connected  with  it. 

The  old  and  familiar  claim  that  the  theatre  is  "  a 
school  of  morals,"  so  far  as  it  was  intended  to  declare  it 
to  be  an  educational  institution,,  with  morality  for  its  ob- 
ject, was  without  any  foundation  whatever.  The  thea- 
tre is  never  ahead  of  the  people  who  patronize  it.  If  it 
has  any  definite  aim,  it  is  to  please — to  reflect  the  tastes, 
the  moralities,  the  opinions,  and  the  enthusiasms  of  those 
who  attend  it.  No  theatre  can  be  run  unless  it  pays, 
and,  as  money  must  be  the  first  object,  such  plays  must 
be  presented  as  attract  the  crowd.  Plays  that  are  offen- 
sive repel  the  crowd,  so  that  the  constant  study  of  man- 
agers is  to  ascertain  the  tastes  and  wishes  of  the  people. 
The  tastes  of  those  who  attend  the  Madison  Square 
Theatre  are  very  different,  doubtless,  from  those  of  the 
people  who  used  to  throng  the  old  Bowery,  but  it  is  a 
fact  worth  noting  that  those  who  attend  the  worst  thea- 
tres are  treated,  most  commonly,  to  plays  which  appeal 
to  the  best  sentiments  and  moods  of  their  audiences. 
Poetic  justice  is  insisted  upon  in  the  dhioucmcnt  of  all 
plots,  before  audiences  of  the  lower  class.  It  is  only 
thoughtful  people  who  will  tolerate  plays  that  do  not 
"  come  out  right." 

Public  opinion  and  public  taste  are  the  master  and 
mistress  of  the  stage.  It  is  but  a  short  time  since  it  was 
proposed  to  produce  a  Passion  Play  in  New  York.  Now, 
a  play  representing  on  the  boards  of  a  theatre  the  Pas- 
sion of  our  Lord  could  have  no  apology  or  justification 
save  in  the  ignorant  devotion  of  those  producing  it.  No 
such  apology  or  justification  exists  in  New  York,  and 
public  opinion  rose  against  the  project  and  vehemently 
protested.  The  manager  who  had  it  in  hand  bowed  re- 
spectfully to  the  public  voice  and  withdrew  it.  Tlie 
incident   is  a  good   illustration   of  the   power  of  public 


35^  Every -Day   Topics. 

opinion  over  the  theatre.  The  truth  is  that  the  hfe  of 
the  theatre  depends  on  its  power  to  please  the  pubHc, 
and  it  is  bound  by  every  consideration  of  interest  to  re- 
flect the  moral  sense  and  moral  culture  of  those  upon 
whom  it  depends  for  support.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
we  have  no  fears  of  a  bad  moral  result  of  the  theatre 
upon  the  public.  If  an  immoral  actress  wins  a  great 
success  in  New  York,  it  is  not  because  she  has  debauched 
New  York,  but  because  New  York  is  tolerant  of  immo- 
rality. If  a  bad  play  succeeds  in  a  New  York  theatre,  it 
is  because  there  is  not  moral  sense  enough  in  those  who 
witness  it  and  in  the  public  press  to  rebuke  it  and  drive 
it  from  the  boards.  The  better  and  purer  the  patronage 
of  any  theatre  may  be,  the  better  will  that  theatre  be- 
come, in  every  variety  of  influence  which  a  theatre  can 
exert ;  and  it  is  delightful  to  believe  that  the  dramatic 
instinct,  which  is  the  source  of  so  much  pleasure  to  so 
many  good  people,  can  be  gratified  without  danger  of 
pollution. 

The  Nihimsts. 

To  the  average  American,  the  name  of  "  nihilist"  is 
a  name  of  horror.  It  is  identified  with  all  that  is  repul- 
sive in  infidelity,  and  all  that  is  damnable  in  crime.  To 
the  ordinary  mind,  a  nihilist  is  a  bad  man,  or  a  bad  wo- 
man, who  does  not  at  all  understand  or  weigh  political 
questions,  and  who  is  insane  enough  to  suppose  that  good 
can  come  of  desperate  measures,  however  poorly  adapted 
they  may  be  to  secure  the  end  sought.  The  nihilist 
commits  a  murder  apparently  in  a  wanton  mood,  and 
apparently  for  the  sake  of  murder  only  ;  we  do  not  un- 
derstand the  motive,  or  the  bearing  of  the  deed,  and  we 
can  only  regard  it  with  horror  and  execration.  By 
one  thing,  however,  we  have  all  been  surprised  in  this 
connection,  viz.,  the   bravery  and  the  loyalty   to   their 


Miscellanea  us.  357 

confederates  with  which  the  nihiUsts  have  met  the 
consequences  of  their  crimes.  Nothing  approaches  this 
courage  and  constancy  but  Christian  martyrdom.  There 
is  another  thing  that  has  surprised  us,  viz.,  the  fact  that 
nihiUsts  are  found  in  the  highest  famihes,  and  not  in- 
frequently among  the  best  women  of  Russia.  With  these 
latter  facts  in  mind,  it  is  quite  time  for  us  to  suspect  that 
the  nihihst  is  not  quite  the  bad  person  we  have  supposed 
him  to  be,  and  to  inquire  into  his  character,  his  poUcy, 
and  his  motives. 

We  have  been  much  interested  and  instructed  by  Mr. 
Axel  Gustafson's  article  on  this  topic  in  the  Naiional 
Quarterly  Review  for  July,  and  it  seems  to  us  that  the 
American  people,  no  less  than  the  cause  of  truth  and  hu- 
manity, are  under  great  obligations  to  him  for  his  masterly 
setting  forth  of  the  facts  concerning  this  terrible  political 
sect.  We  cannot  undertake  in  this  article  to  present 
more  than  the  conclusions  at  which  the  reader  arrives  in 
its  perusal.  We  may  say  at  the  beginning  that  Mr.  Gus- 
tafson  does  not  argue  the  case  for  the  nihilists,  but  pre- 
sents his  facts  and  his  documentary  evidence  in  such  a 
way  that  no  candid  man  can  conclude  the  reading  of  his 
paper  without  feeling  that  the  best  and  noblest  men  of 
Russia  are  in  the  ranks  of  the  nihilists.  The  men  who 
love  liberty  in  Russia,  the  men  who  would  like  to  see 
their  nation  enfranchised  from  the  yoke  of  irresponsible 
personal  government,  the  men  who  wish  to  see  Russia 
progressing  in  the  path  of  freedom  from  political  and 
ecclesiastical  tyranny,  the  men  of  noble  aspirations  for 
themselves  and  their  country,  the  men  of  ideas  and  of 
courage  and  self-sacrifice,  arc  nihilists.  It  is  true  that 
most  of  these  look  upon  Christianity,  as  it  is  presented 
to  them  in  the  doctrines  and  forms  of  the  Russian 
Church,  as  a  worse  than  useless  system  of  religion,  but 
who  is  to  blame  for  that  ?     It  is  true,  also,  that  the  ni- 


358  Every -Day   Topics. 

hilist  regards  murder  as  a  duty  for  which  he  is  willing 
to  sacrifice  his  own  life,  but  who  is  to  blame  for  that  ? 
It  must  be  remembered  that  there  is  no  lesson  of  des- 
perate violence,  and  even  of  indiscriminate  wrong,  that 
he  has  not  learned  of  his  own  government.  He  has  been 
used  all  his  life  to  seeing  men  banished,  or  murdered  by 
his  government,  on  suspicion  of  opposition  to  Czarism. 
He  knows  that  no  opinion  or  word  of  his,  favoring  the 
freedom  of  the  people,  or  the  subordination  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  the  good  of  the  people,  will  receive  a  mo- 
ment's toleration.  He  has  but  to  speak  a  word  for  him- 
self or  his  nation,  and  the  hounds  of  the  government  are 
set  at  once  upon  his  track,  and  then  he  goes  to  prison, 
or  to  Siberia,  or  to  the  gallows.  There  can  be  no 
question,  we  suppose,  that  the  sweetest  blood  of  Russia 
is  freezing  in  Siberia,  and  that,  however  mistaken  the 
nihilists  may  be  in  their  methods,  they  hold  among 
their  members  the  noblest  souls  of  Russia.  They  have 
adopted  the  method  of  terrorism  as  absolutely  the  only 
one  at  their  command.  Free  discussion  has  no  home  in 
Russia.  A  slip  of  the  tongue,  even,  is  rewarded  with 
imprisonment  or  something  worse,  so  that  these  men  and 
women,  with  a  courage  and  a  self-sacrifice  that  find  few 
examples  in  modern  history,  devote  themselves  to  the 
dangerous  task  of  liberating  their  country  from  its  double 
form  of  slavery. 

We  cannot  do  better  here  than  to  quote  some  of  the 
authoritative  declarations  of  the  nihilist  organs.  They 
are  taken  from  different  documents,  and  explain  them- 
selves. 

"  Surely  the  liberty  we  crave  and  strive  toward  is  not  exorbi- 
tant ;  we  only  desire  the  right  to  free  expression  of  our  thoughts, 
the  right  to  act  independently  and  in  accordance  with  our  convic- 
tions ;  to  have  a  voice  in  the  State's  affairs,  and  to  know  that  our 
persons  are  protected  against  official  whims.     These,  surely,  are 


Miscellaneous.  359 

elementary  rights  of  mankind,  rights  to  which  we  are  entitled  be- 
cause of  our  being  human,  and  for  whose  vindication  we  call  our 
brothers'  aid." 

"  What  would  we  do  with  a  constitution  under  present  circum- 
stances ?  So  long  as  the  country  is  denied  all  justice,  r  constitU' 
tion  would  be  of  no  use  to  it.  Let  us  be  given  justice  without 
distinction  of  persons,  and  we  shall  be  satisfied.  But  if  the  State 
chariot  goes  on  as  before,  an  old  programme  must  be  maintained  ; 
it  is — Death  to  the  court  camarilla  and  to  all  criminal  officials." 

"  We  execrate  personal  government  especially,  because  it  has 
outraged  by  all  its  acts  every  feeling  of  justice  and  honor ;  be- 
cause it  systematically  opposes  freedom  of  thought,  speech  and 
education  ;  because  it  supports  for  egotistical  reasons  social  cor- 
ruption and  political  immorality,  since  it  finds  in  these  both  sup- 
port and  accomplices  ;  because  it  makes  law  and  justice  the  instru- 
ments of  its  personal  interests  ;  because  it  exhausts  the  material 
forces  of  the  land,  and  lives  at  the  expense  of  the  welfare  of  com- 
ing generations  ;  because  by  its  home  and  foreign  policy  it  has 
brought  about  a  breach  between  our  land  and  the  rest  of  Europe  ; 
and  because,  after  being  weakened  and  martyred,  we  are  ex- 
posed to  the  derision  and  contempt  of  our  enemies." 

"  The  problem  of  the  socialistic  revolutionary  party  is  the  sub- 
version of  the  present  form  of  government,  and  the  subjection  of 

the  authority  of  the  State  to  the  people The  transfer 

of  the  State  power  to  the  hands  of  the  people  would  give  our  his- 
tory quite  another  direction.  A  representative  assembly  would 
create  a  complete  change  in  all  our  economic  and  State  relations. 
Once  let  the  Government  be  deposed,  and  the  nation  would  ar- 
range itself  far  better,  may  be,  than  we  could  hope." 

These  declarations  do  not  read  like  the  words  of  blood- 
thirsty, and  unreasoning,  and  unreasonable  fanatics. 
They  are  the  words  of  men  who  "  mean  business,"  it  is 
true,  but  of  men  who  simply  want  what  the  American  in- 
herits as  his  birthright.  The  American,  in  judging  these 
brave  men  and  women,  should  remember  that  the  prev- 
alent idea  in  Russia  is  that  the  people  were  made  for  the 
Ciovernment,  and  not  the  Government  for  the  people. 
These  nihilists  differ  with  the  prevalent  idea,  and  so  are 
in  disgrace,  and  not  only  in  disgrace,  but  in  constant  dan- 


360  Every-Day    Topics. 

ger  of  imprisonment,  banishment,  or  death.  They  have 
been  driven  in  their  desperation  to  adopt  the  govern- 
mental poUcy  of  terrorism  and  cruelty.  They  meet 
threat  vi'ith  threat,  terror  with  terror,  death  with  death, 
because  the  Government,  with  the  total  suppression  of 
free  discussion,  leaves  them  no  other  weapons  to  fight 
with.  We  wish  there  were  a  better  course  for  these 
noble  souls  to  pursue,  but  we  judge  them  not.  Their 
methods  seem  harsh — sometimes  almost  fiendish — but 
they  know  what  they  are  after,  and  they  appreciate  the 
awful  risks  they  run.  They  have  undertaken  to  redeem 
their  country  from  misrule — a  great  task — in  which  we 
wish  them  entire  success.  We  profoundly  regret  that 
they  feel  compelled  to  use  the  same  machinery  of  ter- 
rorism and  murder  with  which  their  government  seeks 
for  their  overthrow,  but  we  cannot  do  less  than  sympa- 
thize in  their  great  object,  and  admire  their  courage  and 
self-devotion. 

Cheap   Opinions. 

There  is  probably  nothing  that  so  obstinately  stands 
in  the  way  of  all  sorts  of  progress  as  pride  of  opinion, 
while  there  is  nothing  so  foolish  and  so  baseless  as  that 
same  pride.  If  men  will  look  up  the  history  of  their 
opinions,  learn  where  they  came  from,  why  they  were 
adopted,  and  why  they  are  maintained  and  defended, 
they  will  find,  nine  times  in  ten,  that  their  opinions  are 
not  theirs  at  all — that  they  have  no  property  in  them, 
save  as  gifts  of  parents,  education,  and  circumstances. 
In  short,  they  will  learn  that  they  did  not  form  their  own 
opinions — that  they  were  formed  for  them,  and  in  them, 
by  a  series  of  influences,  unmodified  by  their  own  reason 
and  knowledge.  A  young  man  grows  up  to  adult  age  in 
a  Republican  or  Democratic  family,  and  he  becomes 
Republican  or  Democrat  in  accordance  with  the  ruling 


Miscellaneous.  361 

influences  of  the  household.  Ninety-nine  times  in  a 
hundred  the  rule  holds  good.  Like  father,  like  son. 
Children  are  reared  in  the  Catholic  Church,  in  the 
Episcopal,  Unitarian,  Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Methodist 
Church,  and  they  stand  by  the  Church  in  whose  faith 
and  forms  they  were  bred.  They  become  partisans, 
wranglers,  defenders  on  behalf  of  opinions,  every  one 
of  which  they  adopted  without  reason  or  choice.  Touch 
them  at  any  point,  and  they  bristle  with  resistance,  often 
with  offence  ;  yet  they  borrowed  every  opinion  they 
hold!  If  they  had  all  been  changed  about  in  their 
cradles,  we  should  have  the  same  number  of  partisans, 
only  our  present  Republican  would  be  a  Democrat,  our 
Roman  Catholic  would  be  our  Methodist,  and  so  on 
through  all  the  possibilities  of  transformation. 

Opinions  acquired  in  the  usual  way  are  nothing  but 
intellectual  clothes  left  over  by  expiring  families.  Some 
of  them  are  very  old-fashioned  and  look  queerly  to  the 
modern  tailor  ;  but  they  have  the  recommendation  of 
being  only  clothes.  They  do  not  touch  the  springs  of 
life,  like  food  or  cordial.  Certainly  they  are  nothing  to 
be  proud  of,  and  they  are  not  often  anything  to  ho 
ashamed  of.  Multitudes  would  not  be  presentable  with- 
out them,  as  they  have  no  faculty  for  making  clothes 
for  themselves.  The  point  we  make  is,  that  opinions 
acquired  in  this  way  have  very  little  to  do  with  charac- 
ter. The  simple  fact  that  we  find  God-fearing,  God-lov- 
ing, good,  charitable,  conscientious,  Christian  men  and 
women  living  under  all  forms  of  Christian  opinion  and 
church  organization,  shows  how  little  opinion  has  to  do 
with  the  heart,  the  affections  and  the  life.  Yet  all  our 
strifes  and  all  our  partisanships  relate  to  opinions  whicli 
we  never  made,  which  we  have  uniformly  borrowed,  and 
which  all  Christian  history  has  demonstrated  to  be  of 
entirely  subordinate  import — opinions  often  which  those 
16 


362  Every-Day   Topics. 

who  originally  framed  them  had  no  reason  to  be  proud 
of,  because  they  had  no  vital  significance. 

When  we  find,  coming  squarely  down  upon  the  facts, 
what  cheap  stuff  both  our  orthodoxy  and  our  heterodoxy 
are  made  of ;  when  we  see  how  little  they  are  the 
proper  objects  of  personal  and  sectarian  pride  ;  when 
we  apprehend  how  little  they  have  to  do  with  character, 
and  how  much  they  have  to  do  with  dissension  and  all 
uncharitableness  ;  how  childish  they  make  us,  how  sen- 
sitive to  fault-finding  and  criticism  ;  how  they  narrow 
and  dwarf  us,  how  they  pervert  us  from  the  grander  and 
more  vital  issues,  we  may  well  be  ashamed  of  ourselves, 
and  trample  our  pride  of  opinion  in  the  dust.  We  shall 
find,  too,  in  this  abandonment  of  our  pride,  a  basis  of 
universal  charity — cheap,  and  not  the  best,  but  broad 
enough  for  pinched  feet  and  thin  bodies  to  stand  upon. 
If  we  inherit  our  opinions  from  parents  and  guardians 
and  circumstances,  and  recognize  the  fact  that  the  great 
world  around  us  get  their  opinions  in  the  same  way,  we 
shall  naturally  be  more  able  to  see  the  life  that  underlies 
opinion  everywhere,  and  to  find  ourselves  in  sympathy 
with  it.  We  heard  from  the  pulpit  recently  the  state- 
ment that  when  the  various  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church  shall  become  more  careful  to  note  the  points  of 
sympathy  between  each  other  than  the  points  of  differ- 
ence, the  cause  of  Christian  unity  will  be  incalculably 
advanced  ;  and  that  statement  was  the  inspiring  word  of 
which  the  present  article  was  born. 

We  can  never  become  careless,  or  comparatively 
careless,  of  our  points  of  difference,  until  we  learn  what 
wretched  stuff  they  are  made  of;  that  these  points  of 
difference  reside  in  opinions  acquired  at  no  cost  at  all, 
and  that  they  often  rise  no  higher  in  the  scale  of  value 
than  borrowed  prejudices.  So  long  as  "orthodoxy"  of 
opinion  is  more  elaborately  insisted  on  in  the  pulpit  than 


Miscellaneous.  363 

love  and  purity  ;  so  long  as  dogmatic  theology  has  the 
lead  of  life  ;  so  long  as  Christianity  is  made  so  much  a 
thing  of  the  intellect  and  so  subordinately  a  thing  of  the 
affections,  the  points  of  difference  between  the  churches 
will  be  made  of  more  importance  than  the  points  of 
sympathy.  Pride  of  opinion  must  go  out  before  sympa- 
thy and  charity  can  come  in.  So  long  as  brains  occupy 
the  field,  the  heart  cannot  find  standing  room.  When 
our  creeds  get  to  be  longer  than  the  moral  law  ;  when 
Christian  men  and  women  are  taken  into,  or  shut  out  of, 
churches  on  account  of  their  opinions  upon  dogmas  that 
do  not  touch  the  vitalities  of  Christian  life  and  character  ; 
when  men  of  brains  are  driven  out  of  churches  or  shut 
away  from  them,  because  they  cannot  have  liberty  of 
opinion,  and  will  not  take  a  batch  of  opinions  at  second- 
hand, our  pride  of  opinion  becomes  not  only  ridiculous, 
but  criminal,  and  the  consummation  of  Christian  unity 
is  put  far  off  into  the  better  future. 

With  the  dropping  of  our  pride  of  opinion — which 
never  had  a  respectable  basis  to  stand  upon — our  re- 
spect for  those  who  are  honestly  trying  to  form  an  opin- 
ion for  themselves  should  be  greatly  increased.  There 
are  men  who  are  honestly  trying  to  form  an  opinion  of 
their  own.  They  are  engaged  in  a  grand  work.  There 
are  but  few  of  us  who  are  able  to  cut  loose  from  our  be- 
longings. Alas  !  there  are  but  few  of  us  who  are  large 
enough  to  apprehend  the  fact  that  the  opinions  of  these 
men  are  only  worthy  of  respect  as  opinions.  We  can 
look  back  and  respect  the  opinions  of  our  fathers  and 
grandfathers,  formed  under  the  light  and  among  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  time,  but  the  authors  of  the  coming 
opinions  we  regard  with  distrust  and  a  degree  of  un- 
charitableness  most  heartily  to  be  deplored.  We  are 
pretty  small  men  and  women,  anyway. 


364  Every-Day   Topics. 


Too  Much  of  It. 

As  the  world  grows  older,  and  the  materials  of  knowl- 
edge are  multiplied,  and  the  employments  of  life  are 
subjected  to  the  widest  and  intensest  competitions,  the 
ordinary  individual  seems  to  be  quite  overmatched  by 
his  circumstances.  The  average  man  is  not  "  sufficient 
for  these  things,"  and  the  intellectual  aliment  that  is 
provided  for  him  is  altogether  in  excess  of  his  demands 
— altogether  ahead  of  the  possibilities  of  his  consump- 
tion. We  go  on  producing  profusely  in  all  departments, 
mostly  of  non-essential  material,  and  the  process  of 
gathering  is  a  process  of  selection. 

Let  us  take,  for  instance,  our  morning  newspaper. 
No  man  can  read  one  of  our  great  New  York  dailies 
through,  and  digest  its  contents,  and  have  time  or 
strength  left  for  other  duties.  He  can  only  pass  his  eyes 
over,  and  very  indistinctly  gather  and  remember  the 
leading  matters  of  news.  It  is  a  huge  jumble,  in  the 
main,  of  unimportant  facts — facts  that  have  no  relation 
to  his  life.  Now,  any  newspaper  man  knows  that  the  es- 
sential matters  in  his  columns  can  be  crowded  into  one- 
tenth  of  the  space  that  they  occupy,  and  that  he  fills  his 
columns  with  material  that  it  is  a  waste  of  any  man's 
time  to  read.  He  must  compete  with  his  neighbor,  there- 
fore he  must  give  acres  of  space  to  trash.  Few  can  read 
it,  and  nobody  would  miss  it,  or  be  the  poorer  or  worse 
for  losing  it. 

Who  will  give  us  the  newspaper  that  will  print  only 
that  which  is  worth  reading — only  that  which  people  will 
remember — reducing  it  all  to  its  compactest  form  ?  The 
late  Samuel  Bowles,  of  Springfield,  probably  came  near- 
est to  doing  exactly  this  thing  of  all  who  have  under- 
taken it.     This,  at  least,  was  what  he  definitely  tried  to 


Miscellaneous.  365 

do — to  "boil  down"  everything.  He  was  often  known 
to  apologize  for  a  long  article  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
no  time  to  write  a  short  one.  The  thing  he  accomplished 
was  so  unexampled  that  his  paper  was  regarded  as  a 
model  ;  and  it  achieved  a  national  reputation,  though 
published  in  a  little  city  of  only  thirty  thousand  people. 
If  his  successors  stand  by  this  idea,  they  will  make  their 
newspaper  as  much  a  success  as  he  did.  One  page  of  a 
small  paper  is  enough  to  furnish  a  record  of  any  day's  news 
— of  everything  that  it  is  desirable  to  see  or  remember. 

There  was  a  time  when  a  minister  was  obliged  to  fur- 
nish pretty  much  all  the  intellectual  pabulum  of  his  par- 
ish. His  people  had  little  to  read,  and  they  read  little. 
He  was  the  only  scholar,  and  he  preached  long  sermons, 
and  they  either  liked  them  or  could  stand  them.  Now 
a  long  sermon  is,  in  ninety-nine  cases  in  a  hundred,  a 
mistake.  It  is  not  desired  on  the  part  of  the  people,  and 
it  is  in  no  way  needed  by  the  people.  They  are  glad 
when  it  is  finished,  and  know  that  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses it  had  been  better  finished  from  fifteen  to  thirty 
minutes  earlier.  When  they  have  received  the  idea  of  a 
sermon,  they  can  dispense  with  the  exposition  of  its  va- 
rious phases  and  the  dilutions  and  illustrations  that  go 
with  it.  In  short,  the  people  nowadays  have  a  great 
abundance  of  intellectual  stimulus  outside  of  the  pulpit, 
and  they  want  their  sermons  boiled  down,  as  much  as 
they  do  their  newspapers.  It  is  not  that  they  want  less 
in  them — they  want  all  they  can  get,  and  all  that  the 
best  man  has  it  in  him  to  give  ;  but  they  want  it  in 
smaller  space.  The  pulpit  sin  of  talking  too  much  is 
pretty  universal.  We  do  not  know  of  a  minister  in  tlic 
whole  round  of  a  pretty  wide  acquaintance  v,ho  is  ac- 
cused of  talking  too  little. 

The  tl>eatres  are  even  more  open  to  criticism  on  these 
matters  than  the  newspaper  and  the  pulpit.     How  many 


Z^  Every-Day   Topics. 

persons  does  any  one  suppose  there  are  in  any  theatre  in 
New  York,  on  any  night,  who  are  not  glad  when  the 
play  of  the  place  and  the  evening  is  over  ?  One  of  the 
great  drawbacks  on  theatre-going  and  concert-going  and 
opera-going  is  that  they  last  so  long  that  they  bore  a 
man.  When  that  which  was  intended  to  be  an  enter- 
tainment and  an  amusement  becomes  tedious  and  tire- 
some, it  ceases,  of  course,  to  answer  its  intention.  We 
believe  we  express  the  universal  feeling  when  we  say 
that  our  public  amusements  are  wearisome  except  to  the 
fresh  few  who  have  no  need  of  them.  Three  hours  in  a 
hot  and  crowded  hall,  at  the  end  of  a  day  of  labor,  are 
too  many,  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  many  more  would 
attend  amusements  if  it  were  not  that  the  last  half  of 
their  continuance  becomes  simply  a  period  of  weary  and 
impatient  endurance.  The  way  in  which  a  tired  audi- 
ence jumps  from  a  preacher's  "  Amen"  for  the  door,  is 
only  equalled  by  the  rush  which  begins  before  the  fall  of 
the  curtain  of  the  theatrical  or  operatic  stage. 

Look,  for  another  instance,  at  the  amount  of  stuff  that 
enters  into  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  our  social  life. 
The  hen  that  undertook  to  "spread  herself "  over  a 
bushel  of  eggs  was  a  fair  type  of  the  modern  woman  who 
undertakes  to  keep  up  her  social  relations  with  a  great 
city-full  of  women.  What  is  called  the  "social  tax" 
upon  women  is  something  enormous.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  women  who  are  weary  all  the  time 
with  the  work  of  keeping  up  relations  with  each  other, 
that  are  never  flavored  with  the  element  of  friendship. 
No  good  comes  of  it  that  we  know  of,  or  ever  heard  of. 
It  consists  entirely  of  calling,  and  is  never  so  pleasant 
in  its  experiences  as  when  the  caller  fails  to  find  the 
lady  called  on  at  home.  If  a  lady  can  succeed  in  making 
twenty  calls  in  an  afternoon,  in  consequence  of  finding 
only  ten  ladies  at  home,  she  accounts  it  a  most  success- 


MisccllancotiS.  367 

ful  performance  of  her  social  duties,  and  boasts  of  it  as 
a  good  thing  well  got  along  with.  We  know  of  nothing 
that  wants  boiling  down  any  more  than  our  social  life. 
It  needs  this  concentrating  process  to  make  it  significant 
not  only,  but  to  make  it  endurable.  It  is  good  for  nothing 
as  it  is,  and  it  is  a  weariness  to  flesh  and  spirit  alike. 

We  are  glad  to  see  that  so  many  great  and  able  men 
have  gone  to  making  primers,  so  that  the  essential 
knowledge  embraced  in  the  treatises  of  philosophers  and 
the  records  of  scientific  investigators  may  be  brought  in 
simple  and  easily  available  forms  within  the  reach  of  all. 
We  must  all  go  to  primer-making,  for  there  is  not  enough 
of  any  man  or  of  any  life-time  to  be  spread  over  such 
spaces,  and  diluted  with  such  inanities  and  non-essen- 
tials as  seem  to  prevail  in  every  department  of  human 
interest.  The  days  grow  no  longer  as  the  world  grows 
older,  but  the  interests,  the  employments,  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  world  are  increased  ten-fold,  so  that  they 
must  be  concentrated  and  reduced  in  order  that  they 
may  preserve  their  proper  relations  to  each  other,  and 
to  the  capacities  of  life  and  time. 

European  Travel. 

The  number  of  Americans  travelling  in  Europe  during 
the  last  year  has  been  very  large.  This  continued  inter- 
est in  Europe,  which  seems  really  more  fresh  and  strong 
with  every  passing  year,  is  a  good  sign,  and  can  only  re- 
sult in  good  to  our  country.  Our  sea-side  hotels  are  the 
only  sufferers  from  this  annual  flight,  but  they  manage  to 
prosper  in  spite  of  it,  so  that  we  cannot  spend  much  sym- 
pathy upon  them.  America  has  now  become  such  a  nation 
of  travellers  that  Europe  has  arranged  itself  in  many 
regions  for  her  special  accommodation.  Beds  are  made, 
tables  are  set,  waiters  are  trained,  with  special  reference 


368  Every-Day   Topics. 

to  American  wants  and  tastes,  and  no  American  can  ar- 
rive any  where  without  understanding  that  he  is  welcome, 
and  has  been  looked  for  and  carefully  provided  for, 

Americans  have  been  much  accused,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  of  pride  and  vainglory  in  their  country.  It  is 
true  that  the  average  American  grows  up  with  the  idea 
that  his  country  is,  in  all  respects,  the  most  remarkable 
and  desirable  country  that  the  sun  shines  on — that  it  has 
the  longest  rivers,  the  highest  mountains,  the  broadest 
prairies,  the  most  notable  resources  in  mines  and  soils, 
the  best  institutions,  and  the  brightest,  the  best-educated, 
the  happiest,  and  the  most  prosperous  people  on  the 
face  of  the  globe.  We  suppose  this  unreasoning  pride 
of  country  is  not  peculiar  to  Americans.  The  average 
Englishman  is  about  as  bigoted  in  his  national  pride  as 
he  can  be,  and  so  is  the  average  Frenchman,  while  the 
German  regards  them  both  with  a  measure  of  contempt, 
as  he  indulges  in  his  habitual  glorification  of  "  Va/c'r- 
ia/ic/."  There  is  no  cure  for  this  overweening  national 
vanity  but  travel.  Shut  a  nation  off  by  itself,  as  the 
Chinese  have  been  separated  from  the  world  in  the  years 
gone  by,  and  it  naturally  becomes  to  itself  "  The  Cen- 
tral Flowery  Kingdom,"  and  all  other  nations  are  "  out- 
side barbarians."  Self-idolatry  is  the  besetting  sin  of  all 
peoples  shut  up  to  themselves,  and  nothing  has  done  so 
much  to  modify  the  American  national  vanity  as  the 
travel  of  the  last  few  years. 

However  grand  in  its  natural  features  America  may 
be,  and  however  vast  in  its  material  resources,  these  pe- 
culiarities are  hardly  legitimate  subjects  of  pride,  and 
in  the  presence  of  what  man  has  done  in  Europe,  the 
American  grows  ashamed  of  his  vanity  of  what  God  has 
done  for  him,  and  acquires  a  more  modest  estimate  of 
himself  and  of  his  grade  and  style  of  civilization.  The 
great  cathedrals,  the  wonderful  cities,  the  collections  of 


Miscellaneous.  369 

art,  the  great  highways,  even  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
buildings,  minister  to  his  humihation  by  showing  him 
how  far  other  nations,  new  and  old,  surpass  his  possi- 
bilities of  achievement.  When  a  man  is  thoroughly  hum- 
ble in  the  presence  of  his  superiors,  or  in  the  presence 
of  work  that  overmatches  his  power  and  skill,  he  nat- 
urally becomes  not  only  teachable,  but  an  active  and 
interested  learner.  Europe  to-day  is  a  great  inspirer  to 
America  and  a  great  teacher.  It  is  true  that  she  gets 
but  little  of  her  political  inspiration  from  Europe,  but 
her  instruction  and  inspiration  in  art  are  almost  entirely 
European.  In  architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  and  even 
in  literature,  European  ideas  are  dominant. 

So  this  great  tide  of  life  that  goes  out  from  us  every 
year  docs  not  return  without  that  which  abundantly  re- 
pays all  its  expenditure  of  time  and  money.  For  in  all 
this  impression  of  European  superiority  in  many  things, 
there  is  very  rarely  anything  that  tends  to  wean  the 
American  from  his  home.  The  conventionalities  of  old 
society,  and  habits  and  customs  that  had  their  birth  in 
circumstances  and  conditions  having  no  relations  to  his 
life,  do  not  tend  to  attract  the  American  from  his  home 
love  and  loyalty.  He  usually  comes  back  a  better  Amer- 
ican than  he  goes  away,  with  the  disposition  only  to  avail 
himself  of  what  he  has  learned  to  improve  himself,  his 
home  and  his  country.  The  American,  bred  to  great 
social  and  political  freedom,  cannot  relinquish  it,  and 
can  never  feel  entirely  at  home  where  he  docs  not  enjoy 
it.  He  perfectly  understands  how  a  European  can  come 
to  America  and  be  content  with  it  as  a  home,  because  he 
can  shape  his  life  according  to  his  choice,  but  he  cannot 
understand  how  an  American  can  emigrate  to  Europe 
and  make  a  satisfactory  home  there,  because  the  social 
and  political  institutions  would  be  felt  as  a  yoke  to  him, 
and  a  burden. 

16* 


"^y^  Every -Day   Topics. 

To  leave  out  of  all  consideration  the  matter  of  utility, 
we  know  of  nothing  in  the  whole  round  of  recreative 
experiences  so  pleasure-giving  as  European  travel.  A 
man  of  culture,  visiting  for  the  first  time  the  old  homes 
of  art  and  story,  experiences  about  as  much  of  pleasure 
as  this  world  has  to  give.  To  see  new  peoples  and  strange 
scenery  is  a  great  delight  ;  and  to  do  this,  having  nothing 
else  to  do — far  removed  from  business  cares,  and  even  the 
possibility  of  other  employment — is  to  see  them  under  the 
most  enjoyable  conditions.  Indeed,  we  know  of  no  better 
reward  for  the  labor  of  many  years  than  the  ability  it 
should  secure  to  visit  Europe  as  a  sight-seer.  It  is  often 
thrown  as  a  reproach  at  the  American  that  he  goes  abroad 
quite  ignorant  of  what  is  worth  seeing  in  his  own  coun- 
try, but  this  is  unjust.  In  the  first  place,  many  of  the 
things  quite  worth  seeing  in  America  are  very  difficult  to 
reach.  To  all  the  scenes  of  Europe,  the  way  is  paved 
with  conveniences,  and  often  strewn  with  luxuries.  The 
great  mountains  and  cafions  and  geysers  of  the  far  West 
are  difficult  to  reach.  A  man  almost  literally  takes  his 
life  in  his  hand  when  he  visits  them,  and  his  experiences 
are  full  of  hardship.  In  Switzerland,  there  is  a  better 
road  over  the  highest  mountain-pass  than  America  can 
show  in  her  parks,  and  the  treasures  of  art  which  Europe 
has  to  show  are  of  a  kind  which  an  American  cannot  find 
at  home.  From  the  time  an  American  starts  from  home, 
including  his  passage  of  the  Atlantic,  until  he  returns  and 
once  more  greets  his  native  land,  he  experiences  around 
of  pleasures  procurable  in  no  other  way.  He  comes  back 
full  of  new  ideas,  he  is  rested,  he  is  refreshed  and  every 
way  improved  ;  and  he  is  ready,  as  we  are,  to  give  the  great 
army  of  his  countrymen  who  yearly  follow  in  his  track — 
to  repeat  his  experiences — a  hearty  "  God  speed  !  " 


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